From 

MRS. GEORGE I. CHACE. 

Providence, i88b. 




. j^.^A 



U<2^<^ 



/ 

GEORGE IDE CHACE, ll.d. 



a jHetnorial. 



EDITED BY 

JAMES O. MURRAY. 



NOV 18 1886 



CAMBRIDGE: 

^rijiteH at tlje iHitJcri^iDe ^tt^0* 

1886. 



But I that am under a command not to grieve at the common rate of desolate women, 
while I am studying which way to moderate my woe, and if it were possible to augment 
my love, can for the present Jind out none more just [<o him] nor consolatory to myself 
than the preservation of his memory ; which I need not gild as with such flattering com- 
mendations as the hired preachers do equally give to the truly and titularly honorable. 
A naked, unadorned narrative, speaking the simple truth of him mil deck him with more 
substantial glory than all the panegyrics the best pens could ever consecrate to the virtues 
of the best men. — Memoirs of Colonel Hutchinson by his Wife. 



CONTENTS. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 1 

LIST OF CONTRIBUTIONS TO REVIEWS 70 

LECTURES AND ESSAYS 71 

The Existence of God 73 

The Materialistic Form of the Development Hypothesis . . . 92 
Of Some of the Difficulties with which Theism is pressed . 114 
The Relation of God to the Natural and Moral Worlds . . 138 
Collateral Proofs of the Argument from Design .... 156 

A Discourse on Francis Wayland 177 

The Realm of Faith 220 

Man a Creative First Cause 243 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH 



JAMES O. MURRAY, D. D. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 



The life of a beloved and venerated teacher has peculiar 
claims for commemoration. Even when his fame has been 
secured by his writings or his services, much of his best work 
simj)ly lives in the character of the pupils he has trained. In 
thus moulding character, he touches and shapes the most vital 
interests of society. He becomes a power behind the throne. 
The world may admire the philosophical writings of Plato more 
than his personal reminiscences of Socrates. But if we were 
compelled to choose between these and the dreamy speculations 
in some of his treatises, we should not hesitate to take his grate- 
ful record of the life of the great Grecian teacher, and give up 
his brilliant speculations in philosophy. Dr. Arnold of Rugby 
has just claims for remembrance as a historical scholar. It is 
not these, however, by which he will chiefly live in the grate- 
ful estimation of his countrymen. His fame will be perpetuated 
rather as the great educator, who more than any man of his 
age lifted the high vocation of the teacher into its deserved 
prominence. 

All the more is it true that the teachers of men should be 
fitly commemorated, if the subject of the memoir has been one 
of those choice spirits whose real worth has been somewhat 
veiled by reserve, whose sphere of work has been outside the 



2 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

glare of wide publicity. It happens also in the case of not a 
few of our worthiest scholars that their toils have been put 
forth in a varied field of effort, sometimes compelled to this by 
circumstances or necessity, when, if choice could have been fol- 
lowed, and the talents concentrated on one line of work, the 
impression of the life would have been more sharply defined. 
For such, the only adequate estimate can be reached by " gath- 
ering up the fragments that remain, that nothing be lost," and 
weaving into a connected whole what in its separateness never 
gains the appreciation it deserves. And when a high unity of 
Christian purpose has characterized the whole career, and the 
life has borne its best fruit in the closing period, the task will 
be one no less delightful than sacred. 

George Ide Chace, the son of Charles and Ruth (Jenckes) 
Chace, was born in Lancaster, Massachusetts, February 19, 
1808. The home into which he was born was one of those 
New England households in which so many of our best public 
men have been trained. Its atmosphere was one of strictness 
in religious belief and life. But no austerity chilled the affec- 
tionate intercourse between parents and son. The relation be- 
tween his parents and himself, judging from his letters, was 
one of uncommon confidence and tenderness. Writing to his 
mother on his thirty-sixth birthday, he says : — 

This day reminds me anew of the untold, unpaid, and unpayable 
debt o£ gratitude which every son is under to a good mother, and for 
which the only return he can make is to show her that he is not 
insensible of it. Frequently, when not otherwise occupied, does my 
mind wander back to the days of my early childhood, when it was so 
sweet to pillow my head upon my mother's knee, when her lap was my 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 3 

home, the safe refuge to which I flew from every childish grief or 
trouble. And there are moments when my spirit, worn and soiled by 
the cares of life, has lost its freshness and its hope, in which I would 
fain be that little boy over again, and again nestle in my mother's 
bosom, and find it as secure a retreat from the trials of manhood as 
I then did from the trials of infancy. 

His boyhood was passed on a large farm, now the seat of ex- 
tensive manufactories. The surrounding" region is one of great 
natural beauty, and to this in his earlier years, as indeed 
through life, he was keenly sensitive. It wakened in him at 
an early period the love for observation of nature which simi- 
lar surroundings have developed in the case of many scientific 
men. His interest in all natural growths strengthened with 
years and studies. His love for nature was something more 
and deeper always than scientific interest. It was also the sen- 
timent which the poetry of Wordsworth expresses so tenderly 
and richly. But the scientific interest and the tender senti- 
ment had their beginnings in the early home at Lancaster. 

An accident which befell him at ten years of age was a 
turning point in his life. He fell from the roof of a building 
then undergoing repairs. He escaped fatal injury, but was for 
a time confined to the house. During this protracted convales- 
cence, he gave himself to study under the tuition of an elder 
brother. Natural love of study was quickened. His thoughts 
were turned in the direction of a collegiate education, and his 
heart became set upon it. In this desire his father warmly sym- 
pathized, and when his confinement was ended he began the 
preparatory studies at Lancaster Academy. Here a marked 
aptness for study and devotion to it drew upon him the notice 
of the principal, who wisely and warmly fostered the studious 



4: GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

purposes of his pupil. For this service to himself, in furnish- 
ing him at the very outset of his life as a scholar with so much 
genuine stimulus, Professor Chace always delighted to express 
the sincerest and deepest gratitude. It was a service which he 
amply repaid in similar help to many of his college pupils, who 
recall it with affection and gratitude. 

In the autumn of 1827 he entered the sophomore class of 
Brown University. Under the presidency of Dr. Wayland, be- 
gun in that year, the institution was animated by a new life, 
graphically described by Professor Chace himself, in his dis- 
course on the virtues and services of Dr. Wayland. His intellec- 
tual enthusiasm was still more roused. He applied himself to 
college work with unremitting pains, and was graduated in 1830 
with the first honors of his class, a class which has enrolled in it 
names of high distinction. His valedictory oration on the " Re- 
sults of Improvements in the Science of Education " seems to 
show that the vocation of the teacher was attracting him. He 
does not seem seriously to have contemplated any other as his 
calling in life. Immediately after his graduation, he took the 
position of principal of the academy in Waterville, Maine, now 
known as the Waterville Classical Institute, but after a brief 
service there relinquished it, to accept the of&ce of tutor in 
Brown University. Short, however, as the term of service was, 
it disclosed his rare abilities as a teacher, and it gave him life- 
long friendships. Years later, in 1841, a call to become the pres- 
ident of the college in Waterville, now known as Colby Univer- 
sity, shows that his earlier labors had never been forgotten. 

In 1831 he was offered the place of tutor in Brown Univer- 
sity. He accepted the office at once, and thus began that long 
and brilliant career of service to his Alma Mater which lasted 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 5 

forty-one years. The tutorship to which he was called was that 
of mathematics, a branch of study for which he had in school 
and college days shown marked aptitude. From time to time 
during his connection with the college, he was called on to 
give instruction in its various departments. There can be no 
doubt that if Professor Chace had devoted his life to the 
study of pure mathematics, his abilities would have placed him 
in the front rank of our mathematicians. In 1833, he was ad- 
vanced from his tutorship to the jDOsition of adjunct professor 
of mathematics and natural philosophy, and at this point his 
subsequent career as a teacher of natural sciences begins. In 
1834, he was appointed professor of chemistry. In 1836, the 
chair was enlarged to that of chemistry, geology, and physi- 
ology, a chair filled by him till the end of the college year 
1866-67. These are certainly rapid changes in the depart- 
ments of instruction. They are advances, too, in the nature 
and extent of work required of him. They only show how 
early and how thoroughly Professor Chace had displayed his 
varied powers. The following sketch of his career, drawn by 
his lifelong friend and associate. Professor Gammell, will re- 
veal the sources of his power, and the secret of his success in 
his manifold labors for the college and for the public. 

Of Professor Chace's student days I have httle knowledge. He 
graduated in 1830, and I graduated in 1831, but I recall little else 
concerning him than the high rank which he held in his class, and 
the general estimate which was entertained by his fellow students of 
his ability to master any subject to which he gave his attention. In 
the summer following his graduation, by the selection of President 
Wayland, he came back to the college as tutor of mathematics. He 
thus became a member of the faculty of instruction, a position which 



6 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

he continued to hold till the summer of 1872, during forty-one years. 
In this time I was associated with him as an instructor in the college 
from 1832 to 1864, a period of nearly thirty-two years ; and though 
in quite different departments of instruction from his, I was fully ac- 
quainted not only with the character of his work and the manner in 
which it was performed, but also with the spirit with which he was 
animated and the success which he achieved. 

At the beginning of this period a New England college was an 
institution quite different from what it has since become. It then re- 
tained something of the semi-monastic character which belonged to the 
colleges that form the two great universities of England. From these 
colleges our own had taken their type. The rules as to the life and 
the work of students were still somewhat rigid, and allowed far less 
liberty than now prevails. Officers of instruction, whether professors 
or tutors, were required to occupy rooms in the halls, and to exercise 
an oversight over their students in the rooms around them. The 
whole college assembled at chapel for morning and evening prayers, 
the former being at six o'clock in summer, and not later than seven in 
winter. There was also a commons hall, at which most of the students 
took their meals, and there were study hours, during which all rec- 
reation was suspended and the strictest quiet was enjoined. The 
accepted theory in those days was, that a student's life was to be one 
of systematic and diligent work. College education did not then 
embrace so many amusements as now belong to it. Affiliated secret 
societies had only just begun to exist, though there had long been 
societies for debate and for literary exercises. There were then no 
inter - collegiate matches in boating, or base ball, or other athletic 
sports. Even Class Day was celebrated on a scale that would now be 
thought very limited. But even thus college life had its enjoyments 
which the men of that day delight to recall, and its essential work 
has not materially changed. Its greater freedom and its enlarged 
self-reliance have undoubtedly been of important advantage in the 
formation of manly character. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 7 

As T have stated, Mr. Chace began as tutor in mathematics. He 
was soon promoted to be assistant professor of mechanical philosophy, 
and in this latter capacity he began the teaching of chemistry. While 
thus engaged, he spent a lecture season in Philadelphia, as a special 
assistant of Dr. Robert Hare, then at the height of his renown as pro- 
fessor of chemistry in the Medical School of the University of Penn- 
sylvania. He also attended lectures in anatomy and physiology at 
that school, which was then largely resorted to by students of natu- 
ral science. Not long after his return, a professorship was created 
specially for him, and was made to embrace the three comprehensive 
and attractive sciences of chemistry, physiology, and geology, and in 
the teacliing of these sciences, with their various affiliations and ap- 
plications, he spent the greater part of his professional life. He be- 
came a master in each one of them ; not only a lecturer and teacher, 
but also an original investigator as to their laws and uses and their 
manifold relations to other kinds of knowledge. 

These sciences had then scarcely begun to have any other than a 
very secondary place in college education. To make room for them, 
and to allow to them anything like the prominence which some of 
their votaries demanded, would require very important changes in the 
course of instruction, in which the ancient languages had hitherto held 
the most conspicuous place. The whole question as to what should 
constitute a liberal education was thus raised, and it has not ceased to 
be earnestly discussed even at the present time. President Way land, 
as is well known, entertained very liberal views on this question, and 
some years later embodied them in a little volume entitled, " Thoughts 
on the Present System of Collegiate Education in the United States." 
From him the new studies did not fail to receive all needed encourage- 
ment. He also had a high appreciation of Mr. Chace's ability and 
jjromise as an instructor, and we may readily believe that in addition 
to this he felt a warm interest in the success of the earliest of his own 
pupils who had been appointed to a professor's chair. All his expec- 
tations, I weU remember, were fully satisfied by the manner in which 



8 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

his pupil performed his work. He entered into it with the utmost 
zeal. He made the study of these sciences exceedingly attractive from 
the very outset. He imparted his own enthusiasm to his successive 
classes. The leading proficients among them he would invite to spe- 
cial investigations, and would constantly select from them his assist- 
ants in the laboratory and lecture room. 

It is to be kept in mind that much of the scientific knowledge which 
is to us familiar then presented the aspect of novelty and even of mys- 
tery. The scientific methods which have now been long in use were 
then new. The applications of chemistry to the innumerable pro- 
cesses in which it is now involved had then just been developed. The 
primal facts of animal and vegetable physiology and their connection 
not only with human life, but with the whole realm of organized being, 
were then recent discoveries, and so novel were the teachings of geol- 
ogy that many learned theologians were ready to denounce the sci- 
ence as hostile to revealed religion. It is thus that Professor Chace 
was one of the pioneers in teaching at an American college the phys- 
ical sciences according to the methods which now prevail. With many 
of the leading masters of these sciences he maintained a familiar ac- 
quaintance. He was always attached to his early teacher. Dr. Hare, 
and often saw him in his annual visits to Providence. He shared in 
the extraordinary impulse which the advent of Professor Agassiz im- 
parted to scientific study, especially in geology and physiology, and fre- 
quently met him in familiar personal relations. He numbered the late 
Professor Guyot and Professor James D. Dana among his personal 
friends, and with the late Professor Henry, of the Smithsonian Insti- 
tution, he was on terms of special intimacy, and kept up with him a 
frequent correspondence to the end of his life. The latter especially 
often urged him to publish some of the results of his scientific work, 
but save to a very limited extent, he was never willing to do so. His 
ideal in such matters was a high one, and he thought that many so- 
called contributions to science were hardly worthy of the name. I 
have often heard him modestly say that he had nothing of the kind 
worth publishing. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 9 

His services as a teacher of science were by no means confined to 
his college classes. Quite early in his career his lectures in chemistry, 
by an arrangement of the city authorities, were attended by the elder 
classes, of both sexes, of the Providence High School, and this arrange- 
ment continued for several years. He also gave a brilliant series of 
special lectures to the manufacturing jewelers of Providence, which 
at the time attracted much attention. He was frequently resorted to 
for advice by manufacturers and others engaged in industries depend- 
ing on the right application of the principles of chemistry. Invita- 
tions, too, constantly came to him to lecture in distant places, as well 
as in those near to Providence, most of which he was obliged to 
decline on account of his college engagements. He, however, during 
vacations in different years, gave courses of lectures in Boston, at the 
Peabody Institute in Baltimore, and at the Smithsonian Institution in 
Washington. In the years between 1863 and 1866, while the gold 
excitement was prevailing, his services were in great demand among 
capitalists, who sought advice as to the value of mines which were 
offered to them for purchase. In business of this kind he was for a 
time quite largely engaged, purely as a man of science, who had noth- 
ing at stake but his professional reputation. He thus visited mining 
districts in Nova Scotia, in Canada, in Colorado, and other Territories 
of the West, and also in Nicaragua, in Central America. But he 
made no ventures for himself, and, by his careful examinations and 
cautious judgments, I have no doubt he often prevented others from 
doing so, greatly to their own advantage. 

In the summer of 1867, the presidency of Brown University be- 
came vacant by the resignation of the Rev. Barnas Sears, D. D., who 
had been elected General Agent of the Peabody Education Fund. 
The resignation was unexpected, and it occasioned no small embar- 
rassment at the college. Professor Chace was the senior member of 
the faculty, and by a portion of the corporation he was deemed the 
most desirable person that could be selected to fill the vacant office, 
while a majority of that body were unwilling to vote for any one who 



10 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

was not a clergyman, as all the presidents had hitherto been. An- 
other person was accordingly chosen to fill the office, but by him it 
was declined. Meanwhile, the emergency became a pressing one, and 
Professor Chace was requested to assume the office ad interim^ till 
another election should be made ; and he was also charged with the 
instruction of the senior class in metaphysics and ethics, a work usu- 
ally associated with the office of president. This, not without reluc- 
tance, he also consented to do, for it seemed to be essential to the 
well-being of the college, and for six months he performed the two- 
fold duties thus assigned to him, with eminent success. It was, how- 
ever, still the opinion of the corporation that the head of the college 
should be a minister of the gospel. The result was that the Kev. Dr. 
Caswell, the venerable and highly esteemed ex -professor of mathe- 
matics and astronomy, who had retired from his chair some years 
before, was chosen to the office of president, and Professor Chace was 
at the same time transferred to the professorship of metaphysics and 
ethics. Dr. Caswell was now advanced in life, and was unwilling to 
undertake the duties of a new department of instruction. He could 
not, therefore, fill the office of president, unless the other part of the 
corporation's arrangement was carried into effect by Mr. Chace's ac- 
ceptance of the vacant professorship. The dilemma was not an agree- 
able one. It dema,nded a great sacrifice on the part of Mr. Chace, 
and it is not surprising that he hesitated before accepting a position 
not only involving new labors and responsibilities, but also thus pecu- 
liarly conditioned by the action of the corporation. His final decision 
was prompted by his loyalty to the college, and by his warm regard 
for Dr. Caswell, his early teacher, and his friend and associate for 
many years. His acceptance, in the circumstances, was regarded by 
his friends as an act of rare magnanimity and self-denial. 

It is not to be imagined that Professor Chace was summoned from 
his chair of natural science to one apparently so dissimilar without 
distinct and well-considered reference to his qualifications. In the first 
place, he had been a teacher in the college for thirty-six years, and in 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 11 

that time had taught a variety of studies probably greater than any 
other teacher in its whole history, and this he had done with a high 
order of success. His mind united in a rare degree metaphysical 
acuteness and philosophic breadth, and he was an accomplished master 
in the art of teaching. Nor had his devotion to natural science been 
by any means exclusive. He could not study any one subject without 
considering its relations to kindred subjects. To his thoughtful and 
religious mind the world of matter was the vestibule to the world of 
spirit. His study of the mysteries of the one had led him to con- 
template the sublimer mysteries of the other. No realm of inquiry 
was to him invested with so much interest as that which lies on the 
confines of matter and mind, and he had long delighted to meditate 
the problems which it suggests, and the analogies which it reveals. 
He was also well informed as to the characteristics of the leading 
schools of metaphysical philosophy, and once engaged in his new 
teaching he became intensely interested in it. He performed his 
work in a manner which awakened the utmost enthusiasm in the sev- 
eral classes he instructed, and retired from it in 1872, at the end of 
five years of most useful and honorable service. 

I have thus written of Professor Chace only as a man of science 
and as a teacher. This, however, is by no means all that he was. I 
have been much with him in other interesting relations in which his 
personal qualities were finely shown and his varied resources were 
amply revealed. Of these I may refer to a circle of educated men, 
known as the " Friday Evening Club," of which he was one of the 
original members. It was formed in 1868, and was not suspended till 
1884, and then only in consequence of the changes which death and 
absence and domestic bereavement had wrought among those who 
composed it. It was essentially and largely social in its character and 
sj)irit, but each member was required in his turn to furnish a paper 
on some subject of his own selection that was also approved by the 
club. His papers, according to my recollection, more frequently re- 
lated to ethical, or social, or metaphysical subjects than to those of 



12 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

natural science. It was especially in these, and in the free and 
wide - ranging discussion of the papers prepared by others, that he 
showed not only the extent and thoroughness of his knowledge and 
the variety of his intellectual resources, but also the genial and unas- 
suming responsiveness of his social spirit. In the generous confidence, 
the abounding good nature, the unrestricted interchange of opinions 
and suggestions of every kind, both grave and gay, in the sallies of 
wit, and in the high debate which marked these meetings he took 
great delight, and during the sixteen years in which they continued to 
be held he contributed his full share to the rare intellectual and social 
enjoyments which, in the minds of all its members, will always be asso- 
ciated with our "Friday Evening Club." 

In addition to what Professor Gammell has written, it is 
worthy of note that the foundation of the present Geological 
Collection in the university was laid by Professor Chace. To 
accomplish this he made an extended tour in the summer of 
1836, through Virginia and Kentucky, accompanied by one of 
his students. The service rendered by Professor Chace to the 
college by his collections in this expedition was one of great 
value. So long as he held the chair of geology, he watched 
over this cabinet with unflagging interest, seeking to enrich it 
by exchanges, and fully realizing how essential such collections 
are to teacher and pupil alike. 

Between Professor Chace and his classes in college from first 
to last, as will abundantly appear in this sketch, a relation of 
peculiar worth existed. It was more than respect or admiration 
for his qualities as a teacher. Though somewhat reserved in 
manner, yet his pupils never failed to recognize the innate kind- 
liness and absolute sincerity of his nature. They knew him to 
be genuine and true in all his relations with them; and the 
following tributes from some of these who have become emi- 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 13 

nent in various callings, while they fitly supplement from the 
student's point of view Professor Gammell's admirable sketch, 
only express Avhat all his classes have gladly acknowledged. 
The first is from the Rev. George P. Fisher, D. D., LL. D., 
professor iu Yale College : — 

In the early part of our college course we did not meet Professor 
Chace in the class-room. In the first term of the junior year we had 
some lessons from him in physiology, and in the second term we had 
recitations and lectures in chemistry. In the second term of the senior 
year we recited to him " Butler's Analogy." Before I came into per- 
sonal contact with him as an instructor I had little direct acquaintance 
with him. Twice every day he appeared at prayers in the chapel, and 
occasionally, but very unfrequently, in the absence of both Dr. Way- 
land and Dr. Caswell, he may have conducted the service. When he 
met us on our walks, he greeted us with uniform courtesy, mingled 
with a certain reserve, or appearance of reserve. lie was regarded, as 
we knew, by all the students as a teacher of remarkable acuteness and 
logical ability, and as exacting, in the good sense of the term. He saw 
through disguises ; it was hard for a student to shirk his duties under 
him, and his sharp cross-examination laid bare the ignorance, with a 
pretense to knowledge, which is a not uncommon phenomenon in col- 
lege recitations. It was then the custom at Brown, as some of us have 
not forgotten, for the students to be kept by the rule in their rooms 
during the " study hours " of the day and evening, and for the several 
professors to call at the doors to ascertain if the inmates were at home. 
The rule had begun to be observed by the officers with different de- 
grees of laxity, and was thus on the road to abrogation ; but Professor 
Chace was noted for the punctual or more strict observance of it. 
Hence students who chafed under this restriction sought rooms else- 
where than in his division. But as to his fairness, as well as his civil- 
ity of manner, I never heard, then or afterwards, any dispute or com- 
plaint. 



14 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

It was the custom of Professors Caswell and Chace to select two 
students from the class to assist them in preparing exj)eriments for 
their lectures. My classmate, Weston, and myself were honored with 
this appointment. We thus had occasion to observe with what vigi- 
lance and painstaking Professor Chace made ready for his chemical 
lectures. With characteristic caution, he would not unfrequently warn 
the class, just before performing an experiment, that it might not suc- 
ceed ; but we knew, and the class found out, that the experiments 
would never fail. Of the attainments of Professor Chace in the 
science of chemistry I am not competent to speak ; but of his merits 
as a lecturer in that branch there can be but one opinion among his 
pupils. His order was lucid ; he did not crowd the hearer's mind with 
minutiae; he set forth the main facts and principles of the science 
simply and precisely ; he was fluent without being too rapid. In con- 
ducting recitations, he demanded precision of statement, and his whole 
method of procedure had a high disciplinary value. In personal inter- 
course with Professor Chace, Weston and I met only with kindness ; 
but it was not until later that I escaped from a certain feeling of self- 
criticism from the consciousness of being under the eye of so keen- 
sighted a man, whose pitiless analysis, we fancied, would detect any 
of our shortcomings as surely as he detected fallacies of logic and in- 
accuracies of statement in the class-room. Subsequently, as I saw him 
in his own family and in the more familiar intercourse of later years, 
this peculiar feeling vanished. His evidently warm attachment to his 
pupils, his relish for humor, and his affability exorcised the old tim- 
idity natural to a boy. 

Professor Chace taught the seniors " Butler's Analogy." Here wo 
met him in another province in which his extraordinary acumen ap- 
peared to great advantage. He had an innate taste for metaphysics, 
and a corresponding talent. It was a field in which he was adapted 
to attain to very high distinction. The study of Butler under such a 
teacher, independently of the instruction derived from the author, was 
an admirable discipline of the intellectual powers. Our teacher, when 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 15 

he differed from Butler, or from other authorities, appeared to us to 
have at command a weapon as sharp as a blade of Damascus. A be- 
liever in the truths of religion, he was one who imperatively sought 
and required a rational basis for all his opinions. His understanding 
was naturally skeptical in the sense that he interrogated whatever 
called for credence, and was disposed to take nothing for granted. His 
natural tendencies, I should say, were wholly averse to everything that 
savored of mysticism. His temperament, if one may so say, was scien- 
tific in its whole character. Tenets that offered themselves for accept- 
ance must exhibit their title to belief. Knowledge must verify itself, 
and define itself, and keep within its exact boundaries. His religious 
character was manifest rather in a steady self-government and in faith- 
ful obedience to the precepts of the Master than in expressions of 
emotion. 

But I must leave it to others to dwell on the various excellences of 
our honored friend, and, in particular, on the traits which were spe- 
cially manifest, and the services rendered to the public, in the closing 
period of his life. He deserves to be always held in honor in Brown 
University as a very able and faithful instructor. In the memory of 
his pupils he will always abide in a place of honor and grateful esteem. 

President Angell, o£ the University of Michigan, gives similar 
tribute to Professor Chace's merits as an instructor : — 

"While I was an under-graduate in Brown University, Professor 
Chace at one time or another gave instruction in different branches of 
mathematics, in chemistry, in physics, in zoology, in botany, in geol- 
ogy, and in " Butler's Analogy," and afterwards in the whole range of 
philosophic studies pursued in that institution. His pupils will, I am 
sure, with one accord, testify that he taught every branch admirably. 
He had in large measure the qualities of a superior teacher. His mind 
was singularly acute, yet he never indulged in hair-splitting. He had 
remarkable power of clear and terse statement. No one was left in 
doubt concerning his meaning. His lucid propositions were in them- 



16 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

selves almost demonstrations. He untangled a difficult problem with 
such simplicity that nien disinclined to mathematics learned to like 
them under his instruction. In illustrating scientific teaching he was 
very skillful as a manipulator and experimenter. He was one of the 
few men who could talk well while conducting an experiment. 

Lucid and accurate himself, he insisted on clearness and exactness 
in his pupils. No slipshod work passed muster with him. None of 
the ingenious devices with which shiftless students strive to palm off 
ignorance, or half - knowledge, or happy guesses, for real knowledge 
ever deceived him. So well was this understood that no student who 
was not at once very audacious and desperately hard pressed would 
be so short sighted as to attempt it. Few members of any class which 
passed through his hands failed to have their minds quickened, if not 
to catch a positive inspiration for scholarly work, from his vigor and 
enthusiasm. 

In respect to style his writing was of a high order. It was simple 
and wonderfully clear. It was compact, yet graceful and flowing. At 
times it rose easily and naturally to fervid eloquence. 

He always seemed to me to have an eminently scientific cast of mind. 
He observed keenly, he analyzed thoroughly, he made the most careful 
inductions, he governed all his reasoning by the severest canons of 
logic. Had not the exigencies of old-fashioned college teaching com- 
pelled him to scatter his energies over so many fields of work ; had he 
been able to concentrate his efforts on some one of the sciences, he must 
have attained marked eminence in it. Yet probably his dominant 
passion as a scholar was always for philosophic study, and could he 
have devoted himself to that early in life he would have accomplished 
more than he could have done by an exclusive devotion to science. 
Still, either because so much of his life had been given to science, or 
because he had by nature so strong a scientific bent, he carried much 
of the scientific method into his philosophic work, as he did into all 
work. Perhaps his mind might be called in the best sense skeptical. 
He took nothing for granted. His premises must be beyond dispute. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 17 

Every step of reasoning must be securely taken. He must have ra- 
tional grounds for his beliefs. Therefore his conclusions, when reached, 
were strongly held. They were not merely opinions, but convictions, 
and very positive convictions. 

The strength of his convictions, and his weight of character, and his 
acute perception of the character of others enabled him to do easily, 
when he turned from the secluded life of a scholar to an active partic- 
ipation in public duties, what was a surprise to many, namely, to take 
a leading place among men of ajffiairs, and to control and guide them in 
a remarkable degree. They speedily recognized in him a man of clear 
ideas, of great force and energy, of the purest principle, and of sincere 
devotion to the good of the unfortunate and the criminal classes which 
the charitable and the penal institutions of the State undertook to care 
for. I have always understood that the Hospital Boards and Board of 
State Charities on which he served so faithfully were largely guided 
by his counsels while he was a member of them. 

It was perhaps a surprise to those who did not know him well that 
he should have given the ripest years of his life to charitable labors, 
which could be requited only by the consciousness of good done to 
the helpless and the wretched. There was in him a certain shyness 
or reserve which restrained him from revealinsf himself to those out- 
side of a narrow circle of most intimate friends, and sometimes gave the 
impression to others of lacking something of that tenderness and sym- 
pathy which really dwelt in his heart. Fortunate as Rhode Island has 
been in finding men of ability and character to administer as a labor of 
love her charitable and penal institutions, she has had none who have 
given themselves for long and toilsome years to that noble work with 
more imselfish consideration and more fruitful results than George I. 
Chace. In that field too his practical wisdom, his scientific knowledge, 
and his philosophic ability all contributed to his success. His old pu- 
pils must feel that, since the gratification was denied them of seeing 
him, in his fruitful and vigorous old age, sitting in the governing board 
of the ancient university to which he had given a long and useful life 
2 



18, GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

of toil, and whicli he remembered so affectionately in his dying hours, 
no other work could so fitly have crowned his days as his mission of 
mercy to the insane, the sick, and the prisoner. We shall remember 
him with affection and admiration, not only as the teacher, the scientist, 
the philosopher, but also as the minister to the sorrowing and the suf- 
fering, the loving disciple of his Lord and Master. 

Hon. Edward L. Pierce, of Boston, the biographer of Sum- 
ner, has also well depicted the impression left by Professor 
Chace on the students as a man and a teacher : — 

The characteristic of Professor Chace as an instructor which most 
impressed me during the years 1846-1850, in which I was a member of 
his classes, was the clearness and definiteness of his conceptions. His 
language was always intelligible, for the thought behind it was exactly 
defined in his own mind. A vague or loose statement was foreign to 
his intellectual being. His teaching was never obscured by a cloud of 
words, and he said only what was needed to communicate his ideas. 
No one who has seen much of teachers can fail to respect a faculty in 
him, which is missing in many men of genuine learning and accom- 
plishments. 

As he did his duty, he expected his pupils to do theirs. He was not 
disposed to pass lightly over the laziness and indifference of students 
who came unprepared to the class-room, either confessing their neglect 
of their appointed tasks, or trying to hide it by a fluent recitation. 
To such, if the occasion justified, he was apt to speak sharply, some- 
times with satire. If the offender had in him a substratum of charac- 
ter and purpose, he profited by the rebuke. We venerate, when our 
powers are put to the test in the strain of active life, not the teachers 
who overlooked our shortcomings, but those only who taught us how to 
think and how to work, and who helped to give us character and 
brains. 

Professor Chace was social and friendly, more so than one might 
think from his manner and presence, and he followed with interest the 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 19 

fortunes of the men he had taught. I recall the excursion to Cum- 
bei'land and vicinity, taken annually by the class in geology, in which 
he explained rare specimens gathered from the mines, — the day clos- 
ing with an entertainment at his house, where host and hostess alike 
had good words for each and all of us. 

It is rare that one has combined such various gifts, such a compre- 
hensive intelligence, as distinguished our professor, equally at home as 
he was in the exact sciences and in that larger field in which philoso- 
pher and teacher " vindicate the ways of God to man." Pascal and 
Leibnitz easily attained this distinction ; but it is shared by few, and 
the world questions the pretensions of all who undertake sj)eculations 
in departments not closely related to each other. Est mos hominurn 
ut nollnt enndem j^lunhus rebus excellere. 

I have often thought what rare endowments were united in Professor 
Chace, and how well placed he would have been at the head of one of 
the modern technical schools, to which he would have brought not only 
an accurate knowledge of the sciences, but also practical sense and the 
large-mindedness of one interested in all concerns of patriotism and 
humanity. We may regret that he has left no permanent memorial in 
any treatise upon the subjects which he taught, and that others can 
never know him as his pupils have known him. But this is only the 
common lot. The fashion of this world passeth away ; and even the 
author who has put his life's work into a book soon finds, in the quick 
transitions of thought and discovery, that he must give place to others 
who have profited by his labors and investigations. But our professor 
will at least always live in the character and work of the pupils he 
served so well. For myself, his personality as teacher and friend has 
been a grateful memory during the long interval of more than thirty- 
five years since I left the college, and will remain such until I follow 
him. 

These tributes give fit expression to the sentiments which 
forty classes in the college have cherished of his work in the 
class-room. They are no blind enthusiasm for an instructor 



20 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

popular by reason of other qualities than the solid merits of 
learning and aptness to teach. They record in well-considered 
phrase the delightful memories of an instructor who had a gift 
for teaching of high and uncommon order, and record also the 
fact that in Professor Chace the college had an illustration 
of the truth that in all instruction, taken at its largest and 
best, it is the character behind the teachings that is the most 
efficient educating force. 

In the interval between the presidency of Dr. Barnas Sears 
and that of his successor. Dr. Alexis Caswell, Professor Chace 
was appointed president ad mterwi, holding office for the year 
1866-67. This appointment involved a change in his depart- 
ment of instruction from his old professorship in science to 
that of the chair of moral and intellectual philosophy. It was 
not without a pang that he severed his connection with the sci- 
entific department of the college, in which he had wrought for 
so many years. No more enthusiastic devotee of science ever 
labored in her fields. But, as will be seen, Professor Chace had 
exceptional fitness for his new duties as teacher of moral and 
intellectual philosophy, and fulfilled them with the most grati- 
fying success to his classes and the friends of the institution. 
To the work thus intrusted to him he brought qualities which 
assured its complete and happy achievement. He had from 
the beginning of his career as professor in the college enjoyed 
the confidence and esteem of his pupils, as a man. He had 
won their admiration as a teacher. The dignified courtesy 
which in his recitation or lecture room governed his classes 
so admirably proved equally efficient and equally attractive in 
this new relation. The extraordinary executive abilities which 
marked his later career in connection with public trusts were 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 21 

at once brought into notice. No detail escaped his observa- 
tion. He was a wise disciplinarian. The college work moved 
on without friction, and the order of the institution improved 
steadily and visibly under his care. A touching reminder of 
his painstaking fidelity in the fulfillment of every official duty 
has since his death been found in the carefully written prayers 
by which he prepared himself to conduct the chapel exercises. 
They are models of what such prayers should be. They were 
noted by the students for their appropriateness and fervor, and 
gave to the chapel services a deeply reverent but also a warmly 
spiritual tone. 

At the close of the period, and when, as it appears, the col- 
lege had been brought safely and prosperously through a crisis 
in its history, Professor Chace was rewarded by the most grati- 
fying testimonies to the success of his administration. They 
reached him in resolutions by the corporation and by the fac- 
ulty of the university. The city journals uttered in the public 
ear the same strains of commendation. That he had given 
proof of eminent fitness for the position there could be no 
doubt. Had the corporation appointed him president, there is 
every reason to believe he would have administered the trust 
with signal efficiency. The traditions of the college, traditions 
which are deserving all respect, seemed to require that the in- 
cumbent should be a clergyman. 

The resolutions adopted by the faculty and the corporation 
are here given, as perhaps best embodying the results and suc- 
cesses of his temporary administration : — 

At a meeting of the faculty held this day the following resolutions 
were unanimously adopted : 

Whereas, during the first term of the present year the duties of 



22 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

president and of professor of moral and intellectual philosophy were 
performed ad interim by Professor George Ide Chace, LL. D. : — 

Resolved^ that Professor Chace, in consenting to undertake these 
duties at a crisis of peculiar peril in the history of the university and 
under circumstances involving unusual anxiety and labor, has fur- 
nished additional proof of his disinterested zeal for the highest inter- 
ests of the institution of which he has been so long a distinguished 
ornament. 

Resolved^ that the faculty hereby express their appreciation of the 
eminent ability and success with which these important duties have 
been performed, and their sense of the signal service which Professor 
Chace has rendered to the university by his judicious and dignified 
administration of its affairs. 

Resolved, that the foregoing be entered upon our records, and that 
a copy be presented to Professor Chace. 

A. Harkness, Secretary. 

Brown University, February 25, 1868. 

Providence February 11, 1868. 

Dear Sir, — It gives me pleasure to send you the following votes 
of the corporation of Brown University at the meeting on the 7th in- 
stant : — 

" Voted, that the thanks of this corporation be rendered to George 
I. Chace, President ad interim, for his important and satisfactory re- 
port of the condition of the university under his administration at the 
present time, and for his recommendations for its future improvement, 
and that the secretary communicate this vote to him. 

" Voted, that the report of George I. Chace, President ad interim, 
made to the corporation at the present meeting, be referred to a com- 
mittee, to consider the same, and to report at the next meeting of the 
corporation, — a course advisable to be adopted to carry into effect the 
improvements therein suggested, and any others in their opinion de- 
sirable and practicable." 



GEORGE IDE CHACE 23 

In accordance with the above vote the following committee was ap- 
pointed : Messrs. Caswell, Kingsbury, Caldwell, Woods, of the Fel- 
lows ; Messrs. W. S. Patten, Ives, Hague, S. G. Arnold, Woods, Lin- 
coln, Trustees. 

Allow me the return of the report at your earliest convenience, as 
it is deemed desirable to copy it on our records. Yours truly, 

John Kingsbury, Secretary C. B. U. 
George I. Chace, LL. D. 

On the accession of Dr. Casvs^ell to the presidency of the 
college, Professor Chace's labors were entirely devoted to the 
new department of moral and intellectual j^hilosophy, which he 
had assumed the previous year, and in which he at once reached 
honorable distinction. This was a matter of no surprise to 
those who knew his fondness for philosophical studies, espe- 
cially as these are connected with natural theology, and who had 
been acquainted with his contributions to our periodical litera- 
ture discussing such themes. They show the qualities which a 
successful teacher in this department of study must have at 
command. In his memorial sermon. Rev. Dr. Thayer has given 
a just estimate of Professor Chace's fitness for the chair of 
moral and intellectual philosophy : — 

He was a careful student of the relations between mind and matter, 
and of the mysterious analogies through which they reflect light one on 
the other. The results of these studies he frequently gave to special 
companies of students who met for this purpose, and thus he unfolded 
the essential items of natural theology and the argument for immor- 
tality. So far, indeed, from his physical studies having absorbed his 
capacity for psychological inquiries or dulled his sensibilities to their 
finest distinctions, his earlier direction of thought seemed rather to 
have rendered his mental vision in the sphere of intellectual and moral 
philosophy more acute, and to have disciplined to severer limitations 



24 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

his use of analogical reasoning. . . . Many who hear me will testify 
to the thoroughness of his instructions, and to the opinions they then 
formed of his power to impress on other minds the great truths of 
Christian ethics. To some, indeed, who have known little of Professor 
Chace as a scientific man, but who in these last years have been some- 
what familiar with his treatment of metaphysical subjects, it is a ques- 
tion if metaphysical acumen was not his chief characteristic, and his 
last department was not best fitted to call out his highest powers. 

Professor Andrews, now filling the chair of history and po- 
litical economy in Brown University, and a former pupil of 
Professor Chace's in these studies, has kindly furnished the ac- 
companying statement as to his methods of teaching, its range 
and its success, which illustrates and confirms what Dr, Thayer 
has so well said : — 

Professor Dunn's death and Dr. Sears's resignation in the summer 
of 1867 vacated, besides the presidency, two most important profes- 
sorships. Who was to succeed to the open places became a serious 
question, which students asked with no less anxiety than those who 
were responsible for the answer. The more thoughtful and advanced 
of them naturally felt special solicitude respecting the instruction in 
philosophy. Professor Chace's reputation for ability and for the mas- 
tery of his chosen department may have been as high outside college 
as within, but few others knew so well as those in college who had 
already been his pupils the extraordinary range of his acquirements or 
his incomparable excellence as a teacher. To them, therefore, the more 
since they could not appreciate the peculiar difficulties of the new de- 
partment, his transfer to the chair of philosophy gave the utmost satis- 
faction. As class after class reached the senior year, this rose to en- 
thusiasm. 

The five classes instructed by Professor Chace in philosophy will 
never be able to avoid regarding his work during those years as the 
clearest of his many titles to grateful remembrance by the college. It 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 25 

seems impossible that he should ever have taught any other subject 
with equal triumph. He unfolded puzzling- conceptions in psychology 
and followed out the finest metaphysical distinctions, apparently with 
as complete ease and thoroughness as if his work had always lain in 
this field. And it is doubtless true that no one of the matters which 
his change of employment called him to canvass was new to him. 

Of what, as a student, he had learned from President Wayland, 
whom he warmly admired and revered, he had evidently forgotten 
nothing, although tradition has it that he never took notes in class. I 
chance to possess an item of evidence regarding his proficiency in phi- 
losophy when an under-graduate, which has not hitherto been made 
public. The Rev. Dr. Babcock, at that time president of Waterville 
College, once related to me that, being present at Dr. Wayland's exam- 
ination in Professor Chace's senior year in college, he was led by the 
young gentleman's brilliant answers to ask him some quite difficult 
questions considerably aside from the topic assigned. Chace hesitating 
a little over one of these, Wayland leaned toward Babcock and whis- 
pered, " Push him, push him ; he '11 stand it." Stand it he did, giving, 
after an instant's reflection, the correct reply. Similarly in all the 
subsequent years, his thinking must have taken a far wider sweep than 
his immediate tasks exacted. 

Such, for instance, was his cast of mind that all his investigations in 
science were at the same time studies in natural theology. He had 
become a master in this, and his handling of the argument from design 
and his whole exhibition of the telic structure of the universe were 
veritably peerless. In enforcing ti'uths of this sort he made constant 
and minute reference to the eye and other j:)arts of the human frame, 
where his critical knowledge of physiology did him admirable service. 
Not an exercise with his class passed wherein he did not greatly enrich 
his philosophical instruction by precious bits of fact, method, or insight 
from the domain, so familiar to him, of the physical sciences. 

Professor Chace's wide researches in other directions had somewhat 
limited the amount of reading which he would have been glad to do in 



26 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

the earlier history of philosophy, but in the discussions of the philo- 
sophical world which were current in his time he was certainly at home. 
He was well acquainted, in fact, with modern English philosophy 
entire, from Locke, whose system, as usual then and even still in 
American colleges, formed the point of departure for his course of in- 
struction in this branch, through Berkeley, Hume, Reid, and Stewart, 
to Hamilton and Mill. To the French development of Locke, or the 
still more important one by Kant in Germany, he paid little attention, 
herein again following the custom of American colleges. Well do I 
remember, among much else, his clear account and searching criticism 
of Positivism, and how plain he made the logical path from Locke 
through Berkeley to Hume. Not less striking was the concise resum/ 
he used to give of the various forms which Pantheism has taken in the 
history of thought. He loved to dwell upon the causal judgment, and 
to point out its significance for philosophy and theology ; and he never 
tired of explaining the fatal consequences of accepting Hamilton's doc- 
trine upon this point. He was no believer in Idealism, but had pro- 
found regard for Berkeley, and was wont to insist that Berkeley's views 
should not be misunderstood. The professor had interesting and orig- 
inal ideas of the " art process," as he called it ; and this, so far as I 
can remember, was the only subject upon which his conclusions were 
exactly the reverse of Wayland's. Free-will, where he showed famil- 
iarity with Edwards, the nature of miracle, the mode of the soul's 
cognition of its body, — point of his chief difference with President 
Porter, — are specimens of the themes with which that rare mind and 
trained tongue engaged the interested attention of college students. 

In ethics it was Professor Chace's dearest conviction, underlying all 
his teaching, never to be forgotten by any of his pupils, that right is 
eternal, not proceeding from will, but of the nature of law to all will, 
even God's. As little can his unvarying reverence, his earnest spirit 
in treating ethical problems, or his lucid and sensible views upon vexing 
questions in casuistry ever pass from our memories. 

Professor Chace had the keenest analytic power of any thinker whom 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 27 

I have ever heard discourse ; and, what is very rare indeed, he joined 
with this a hardly less remarkable faculty for generalization, which 
enabled him, on grasping the salient notions of a philosophical system, 
to think his way rapidly to its remotest deductions with but a fraction 
of the reading which many another scholar would have required. A 
consequence, a very part rather, of this his gift at generalizing, was his 
genius for bearing in mind and setting forth all the relevant aspects of 
whatever subject he undertook to expound, in their proper and natural 
relations, so as to produce a symmetrical and truthful impression. In 
proportion, therefore, in its relative emphasis of points, dwelling only 
upon essentials and passing the rest with a glance, his teaching was 
about faultless. And touching these essentials, nothing short of ab- 
solute mastery by pupils would satisfy him. That a recitation repro- 
duced the lecture signified little ; the student was held to a careful 
original explanation of every topic. Essays were assigned, yet without 
references to authorities, every artifice being employed to compel in the 
young men power, independence, and clearness of thought. The class- 
room discussions and criticisms were meant to stimulate these qualities. 
All those of us who sat at his feet in philosophy will remember to 
our instructor's perpetual praise that he entertained such a theory as 
he did of the aim of college instruction, — a theory which few now 
seem to cherish. I mean that he taught for the sake of his pupils, to 
build intellect and character, rather than for the sake of the subject. 
His first care was to train the mind ; filling it he thought important, but 
subordinate. Poise, strength, and consistency in mental work resulted. 
Able students felt so sure of the ground they had traversed — this is 
so far, indeed, a just criticism of the method — that they were left too 
little conscious how much, after all, they had not learned. There was 
moral quickening as well as intellectual, continual pungent reminders 
of the supremacy of moral law, of the reasonableness and worth of re- 
ligion. Pupils awoke to tlieir powers and their duties. Not few are 
the successful men now in society's busiest places who received in 
Professor Chace's lecture-room their first inspiring consciousness of 



28 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

vocation, their earliest permanent and decisive ambitions. In fact, 
there are none, I believe, who studied philosophy under him but look 
back to that golden year as intellectually and morally the central epoch 
of their lives. 

The professor's expositions, whatever the subject, were clothed in 
language the most choice and exact, often elegant, not rarely eloquent, 
the more remarkable from his long association with material science, 
and from the fact that he had always been more thinker than reader. 
His references to literature were few, but felicitous. Many will recall 
his apt quotation from Virgil in his charming and spirited address to 
General Sheridan, upon that gentleman's memorable visit to the col- 
lege, I think, in 1868. His knowledge of Scripture was copious and 
precise, and the rich beauties therefrom, in which his chapel prayers 
abounded, made listening to these a constant pleasure and surprise. 

For five years Professor Cliace continued to hold this position. 
His power in the department grew steadily. Though at times 
he longed for the old familiar paths of science which he loved so 
well to tread, yet he could not have failed to see that at no time 
during the long period of his connection with the college was 
his influence over the students intellectually and morally greater 
than during his five years of work in the chair of moral and in- 
tellectual philosophy. Striking and gratifying tokens of this 
are seen in a petition and an address from the class of 1872 
here given. And when at length the projected departure for 
foreign shores took place, the class went in a body to the sta- 
tion, and bade him with cordial and affectionate greetings a 
God-speed on his voyage. 

PETITION OP CLASS OF 1872. 

To QUE Respected and Beloved Professoe Geoege I. Chace : 

Eealizino^ the invaluable character of the instruction which we have 
received from you, and cherishing at the same time feelings of warm 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 29 

personal attachment, which the relations of the past year have devel- 
oped, we learn with deep regret that your connection with our college 
is so soon to cease. Your instruction cannot, we feel, be replaced to 
us : still less can be filled the place which you occupy within our hearts. 
We desire, therefore, as a class, to return to you our heartfelt thanks 
for the past ; and while expressing our preference for your instruction 
over, that of any one who might succeed you, we sincerely hope that it 
may be within your power to complete our course of instruction in 
moral philosophy, when we shall consider it our honor to leave the 
university with you. [Signed by the class.] 

To Professor George I. Chace, LL. D. : 

Respected Sir, — A few months since we learned with much regret 
that you were about to resign your professorship in the university. 
We therefore took the liberty to express to you our earnest hope that 
you would delay your departure at least till we had completed the 
studies which we had already so liappily begun under your guidance. 
We do not imagine that your plans were changed in consequence of 
our solicitation alone ; yet we feel that we are greatly indebted to you 
for having continued to us the benefit of your instruction during the 
remaining term of our college course. Had you left us then it would 
have occasioned us a great disappointment. That you have remained 
to the present time has afforded us a corresponding satisfaction and 
pleasure. During the past year and a half you have conducted us 
through some of the most interesting and important departments of 
science, both material and spiritual, and have taught us lessons of price- 
less value relating both to the present life and to that which Is to come. 
We shall always cherish these Instructions as among the best treasures 
of our college education, and we shall aim to guide our lives In accord- 
ance with the precepts and standards which you have placed before us. 
For all these and for the daily Interest and care which you have be- 
stowed upon us, we beg you to accept our heartfelt gratitude. 

We are to be the last in the series of classes which have gone forth 



30 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

from the university bearing the impress of your instructions, and your 
departure is to be coincident with our own. In recognition of this co- 
incidence and as a testimonial of the sentiments we cherish, suffer us 
to present to you this simple record, signed with the name of every 
member of the class. It is designed to express to you our individual 
respect and esteem, our high appreciation as a class of the instructions 
which you have given us, and our sincere good wishes for the prosper- 
ity of your journey and for your health and happiness during many 
years to come. 

In taking leave of you we subscribe ourselves, very respectfully, 

Your Pupils and Friends. 

The university also, through its corporation, gave expression 
to its earnest desire for the retention of Professor Chace among 
its faculty, as the following resolutions will show. In this ac- 
tion of the college authorities were embodied the views and 
feelings of the alumni of the institution. He closed his career 
as professor brilliantly, and amid general regrets that it was 

to terminate. 

Providence, January 24, 1872. 
Professor George I. Chace, LL. D. : 

Dear Sir, — At a meeting of the corporation of Brown University, 
held to-day in Rhode Island Hall, the undersigned were appointed by 
the corporation to convey to you the following resolutions, namely : — 

" Resolved^ that this corporation tender Professor George I. Chace 
their unanimous thanks for his services as professor of intellectual and 
moral philosophy, and their unanimous request that he continue to 
render the same service during the present collegiate year. 

" Resolved, that this corporation take the present occasion to ex- 
press to Professor George I. Chace their unanimous desire that the rela- 
tion which he has for so many years sustained to the university, as one 
of t*he instructors therein, may be continued in future years in such de- 
partment and to such an extent as may be acceptable to himself and 
the corporation." 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 31 

Permit us, dear sir, to add for ourselves an expression of our grati- 
tude for the eminent service which you have rendered the university, 
and of an earnest hope that you will comply with the unanimous re- 
quest of the corporation ; for we are confident that you will thus con- 
fer a lasting benefit on the young men who enjoy your instruction, and 
a further honor on the university which you have loved, and have done 
so much to render justly famous in the land. With sentiments of cor- 
dial esteem and friendship we are, Truly yours, 

Alvah Hovey, 
C. S. Bradley, 
Thatcher Thayer. 

But in the fullness of his strength, and with these tokens of 
hearty appreciation of his pupils, colleagues, and the public, 
Professor Chace decided on retirement from the institution he 
had served for forty-one years with unremitting vigor. It was 
no sudden impulse, no hasty plan. Five years earlier he had 
written his sister, to whom through life he was tenderly at- 
tached : " I prefer to close my professional career while I am in 
full strensfth and visfor, and while I still have freshness of in- 
terests enough to find other occupations attractive." 

During the years 1872-73 he sought these new interests in 
foreign travel. In company with Mrs. Chace he visited Europe, 
Greece, and Egypt. He had projected also travel in the Holy 
Land, but was obliged to forego this part of his tour. He 
sought the shores of the Old World, not so much for rest as for 
the culture to be gained by travel. He had been deeply inter- 
ested in the study of history as it disclosed a plan of God for 
human advancement. He loved, like Bunsen, to trace the foot- 
steps of God in history. Hence his desire to see for himself the 
great civilizations of the Old World ; to be brought in contact 
with older races ; to survey for himself the wrecks of the storied 



32 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

past. Art in great paintings or sculptures had for him less inter- 
est than masterpieces in literature or the growths of nature. He 
soon wearied of the picture-galleries. But his delight knew no 
bounds when he found himself among the Alps. His studies 
in geology had perhaps something to do with this. He had 
seen the grandest of our own scenery on the Pacific coast. But 
amid the stupendous movements of nature as the Alpine scen- 
ery discloses them, his mind and heart were stirred to un- 
wonted enthusiasm. He looked on them less from the scientific 
point of view than from the sssthetic or moral. Mrs. Agas- 
siz, in the memoir of her husband, lately published, has said 
that the key-note of all his scientific investigations was belief 
in the existence of a Creator. Through all Professor Chace's 
life, this runs as a golden thread. It is best expressed by him- 
self in this extract from an address to one of the college 
classes on the occasion of a Class Day celebration : — 

But I must not dwell upon our companionship, however pleasant it 
has been to me, as we have ranged together over so wide and so diverse 
fields of the great domain of nature. I trust that we have gathered 
some fruit. I trust that our souls have been nourished as well as our 
understandings informed. I trust that nature has lost none of her 
mystery or beauty while we have analyzed her phenomena and sub- 
jected them to the dominion of law. Nay, has she not revealed to us a 
profounder mystery. Have we not discerned in her a higher beauty, 
— a beauty of mind, of thought, of soul, of which her outward forms 
and phases are but the dim reflections ? I envy no man that philoso- 
phy which would limit our knowledge to the feeble grasp of the senses, 
would divorce from the universe mind, and see in its regulated and or- 
derly changes only the operation of material forces and laws. Better 
abandon at once all philosophy and all science. Better the rehabilita- 
tion in nature of her ancient divinities, — better for head, better for 



GEORGE IDE CIIACE. 33 

heart, better for soul. Better that Apollo should again curb with his 
strong arm the fiery steeds of the sun, the swift-footed hours dancing 
in faithful attendance around his flying car ; better that Neptune 
should traverse once more the ocean in his dolphin-drawn chariot, rul- 
ing by his trident the waves, with a huge train of gamboling monsters 
in his wake ; better that the forest should be still peopled by dryads, 
and every river and brook and fountain have its naiad ; better that 
the features of a god should look out from every knoll and rock and 
tree, than that a blank, dead atheism should spread over and impall 
nature. 

But I need not say to you that such are not the teachings of true 
science. It is only philosophy, falsely so called, that conducts to con- 
clusions so disastrous to our whole natures and to every interest of 
human society. Science genuine and profound, and in proportion as 
it is genuine and profound, will ever be found the assistant and hand- 
maid of religion, the interpreter of the divine thought, and the revealer 
of the divine will in nature. It discloses in the outward material 
world a breadth of plan, a comprehensiveness of design, a grandeur of 
movement, and a sublimity of purpose in comparison with which the 
loftiest conceptions of divinity attained by classic antiquity are but 
the feeble imaginings of sick men or the puerile fancies of children. 
Imparting to the universe something of its real magnitude and propor- 
tions, it converts that universe into a vast temple everywhere irradiated 
by the power and the presence of God, and makes life to a devout man 
one continued act of worship. 

Next, however, to the grandeurs of Alpine scenery what inter- 
ested him most deeply was Egypt and Egyptology. The land 
of the Pharaohs was to him fuller of interest than any spot he 
visited. It fascinated him as it has fascinated so many other 
thoughtful minds. He never wearied of visiting the Museum 
of Antiquities at Cairo. He spent hours each day, during a 
protracted stay in the ancient city, in studying its treasures. 



34 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

And it was mainly the religious element in that old civilization 
which delighted and engrossed him. The interest of a Chris- 
tian philosopher in Egyptology, springing from investigations 
in comparative religion, drew him more and more closely to the 
strange Egyptian mythology. It seemed to him to have imbed- 
ded in itself so lofty and so spiritual teachings as to create a 
profound and serious problem. He could not dismiss it as sheer 
and utter paganism. On his return, he prepared and read be- 
fore the Friday Evening Club in Providence a paper on the 
Osiris Myth, which closes with these words, and which shows 
the intensity of interest with which he regarded the whole sub- 
ject : — 

But whence, we naturally ask, did the Egyptian faith derive the 
spiritual truths which during the earlier centuries gave it such power, 
and which after ages of corruption and perversion by the priests still 
enabled it to maintain its hold upon the respect of the people ? More 
especially, whence the unexpected and almost startling resemblance 
which in some of its features it bears to Christianity, unfolding as it 
seems to do a similar plan of salvation, and revealing like phases of 
the divine character ? Are its contained truths parts of a heritage, 
originally bestowed upon man before his dispersion over the earth ? 
Or did they originate, as Bun sen supposes, in the God-consciousness 
of the human soul ? Or were they reached by philosophic induction 
through profound thought and study? Or has the common Father, 
instead of restricting his revelations to a single tribe or stock, mado 
known to all the great races of mankind such moral and spiritual 
truths as are necessary to the performance of the part assigned them 
in the drama of human progress? However we may answer this ques- 
tion, a faith that has lighted so many millions of our fellow-men to the 
tomb, and has projected its rays, feeble and flickering though they be, 
into the unexplored regions beyond, is worthy of our respectful and 
sympathetic regard. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 35 

This period of foreign travel in 1872-73, lasting for a year 
and a half, seems, however, only to have invigorated him for a 
new sphere and new plans of work. He wrote from Dresden : 
" It is now a little more than a year since we left home. I am 
getting weary of travel, and shall be glad when we have accom- 
plished what we proposed to do." His active spirit never could 
have contented itself with mere scholarly leisure. Some career of 
useful endeavor it was sure to create for itself. Accordingly, 
on his return to his own land, and for the last twelve years of 
his busy life, we find him devoting himself to labors wholly 
apart from his old professional calling, yet which crown his 
life with rare comj)leteness and honor. It seems evident that 
in these the influence of Dr. Wayland is clearly traceable. He 
had in a passage of great force and beauty spoken of Dr. Way- 
land's devoted labors for promoting every educational, philan- 
thropic, and religious interest in the city of Providence and the 
State of Rhode Island. He caught the inspiration of the great 
example. It was easy for him to do so. He was never a schol- 
arly recluse, shutting himself off from contact with living social 
interests. Naturally reserved, yet that reserve never stood in 
the way of active service, and was no bar to useful endeavor. 
It was his conviction that the scholar, be he man of letters or 
man of science, held his gifts and acquirements in trust for the 
common good. Years before, and while he was busy with his 
college classes, he found time to give lectures to those engaged 
in the manufacturing industries of the State. An illustration of 
what he did in this way is found in the following extract from 
the Providence " Journal " : — 

We take pleasure in publishing the following correspondence, grow- 
ing out of a course of lectures delivered during the past winter in 



36 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

Rhode Island Hall. These lectures were given under a provision made 
in the recent organization of the university for extending to the prac- 
tical classes of the community the advantages of scientific instruction in 
the processes of their several arts. They were especially designed for 
the benefit of those engaged in the working of metals, and were at- 
tended by large numbers of the intelligent and enterprising jewelers of 
our city. The manner in which they were appreciated is indicated by 
the correspondence, and the value of such appreciation will be inferred 
from the position and character of the gentlemen whose names are 

affixed to it. 

Providence, June 8, 1853. 

Professor George I. Chace, Brown University : 

Dear Sir, — We ask your acceptance of the accompanying silver 
pitcher as a token of the regard in which we hold your labors in the 
course of lectures at Rhode Island Hall, on the Chemistry of the 
Metals. Yours, very respectfully. 

Church & Metcalf, Sacket, Davis & Potter, 

Samuel Allen, Allin Brown, 

Budlong & Rathbun, Henry Simon, 

Stone & Weaver, Potter & Brown, 

George Mason, Lewis Carr, 

George Hunt, W. F. Marshall, 

T. J. Linton, George A. Sagendorph, 

Gorham & Co., Wm. W. Keach, 

Mathewson & Allen, G. & H. Owen, 

Palmer & Capron. 

Brown University, June 8, 1853. 

Gentlemen, — Permit me to tender to you my sincere thanks for 
the splendid testimonial with which you have been pleased to honor my 
humble endeavors to elucidate some of the processes of your beautiful 
art. Whether I regard the object itself — a graceful and finished 
product of Rhode Island skill and workmanship — or think of the gen- 
erous appreciation and high courtesy to which I am indebted for it, its 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 37 

possession is equally a source of pride and gratification. I shall ever 
prize it, not only as a grateful remembrancer of the past, — of hours 
spent pleasantly by me, and I hope not unprofitably by you, — but as a 
bright augury of a closer relationship in future, at least within the bor- 
ders of our city, between science and the productive arts. For the es- 
tablishment and maintenance of such a relationship, I pledge you, in 
receiving this superb gift and proud token of your confidence and re- 
gard, that no exertions on my part shall be wanting. 

With sentiments of the highest respect, I remain, gentlemen, 

Your obliged servant, 
George I. Chace. 

We think that the university could hardly desire a more gratifying 
proof than is thus offered that its recent provisions for the wider and 
more general diffusion of scientific knowledge, especially among the 
mechanical classes, are held in due estimation. When, last autumn, 
by way of carrying out these provisions in one of the directions open 
for it, the above course of lectures was suggested to some of our lead- 
ing manufacturing jewelers, they entered at once into the spirit of 
the enterprise, and lent to it their ready aid and sympathy. And 
now, after having contributed, by their cooperation and influence, in 
no small degree to its successful issue, they have chosen this most 
emphatic mode of pixblicly expressing their approbation of the design 
and purpose in which it originated. 

We trust that the endeavors of the university for the promotion 
of a broader and more popular education will be seconded with equal 
promptitude and spirit by the intelligent and influential citizens en- 
gaged in other branches of trade and manufacture, and that the 
time will soon come when a knowledge of the sciences, instead of 
being confined to the professional classes, by whom they are sought 
chiefly as a means of culture, shall be the possession of every mechanic 
and artisan, to whom, besides answering the same general end of cul- 
ture, they will prove of the greatest practical value. 



38 GEORGE IDE CHACE, 

With the views here expressed Professor Chace was in the 
fullest sympathy. He was ready to give unsparing effort to 
carry them into effect. His success in this field of effort was 
as marked as his success in class-rooms with the pupils of 
the college, or before more cultivated audiences. 

It is important to note these early efforts of Professor Chace 
to identify himself with interests outside his professional life, 
since they are the root out of which sprang the " bright 
consummate flower " of his closing years. The charitable 
labors which invested them with so rich a crown were in fact 
no sudden development. His mind and heart had long been 
in training for them, and when the opportunity came he seized 
it. These labors were, during this period, mainly of a philan- 
thropic nature. But before considering them in proper detail, 
what seems like an episode in his career should be noticed. 
It was his brief service to the city of Providence as one of 
its aldermen. To this office he was chosen in 1878, again 
in 1879, afterwards declining reelection, but only because his 
labors for the public weal in other directions had become too 
severely onerous. To this office he brought the same gifts 
which had made him conspicuous as a teacher : fearless hon- 
esty in dealing with all questions ; thorough-going scrutiny of 
whatever came up for investigation ; careful weighing of all 
considerations bearing on the question, — and then, as the 
result, sound practical conclusions. His speech on the sub- 
ject of true municipal economy attracted at the time of its 
delivery the attention of the whole city. It was commented on 
most favorably by the city journals. Citizens sent in commu- 
nications warmly commending his views. In all the varied 
interests with which city government has to deal, he was con- 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 39 

spicuous as the advocate of sound business-like views. He felt 
profound concern as to the whole question of municipal gov- 
ernment. He sat upon committees, engaged in debate, pro- 
moted measures in the board of aldermen, with the same earnest, 
painstaking, thorough-going service with which he taught his 
classes in mental and moral philosophy. Perhaps no better 
illustration of the breadth and wisdom with which he met all 
subjects of municipal welfare can be found than is supplied in 
a speech at the dedication of the new Providence High School 
Building. Its opening portions are subjoined : — 

The completion of this ample, commodious, and beautiful edifice, 
to be dedicated henceforward to the highest education of our city, 
to be the perpetual seat and home of a manly discipHne and gen- 
erous culture, where our most gifted youth may, generation after 
generation, receive instruction in all useful knowledge, and have their 
minds moulded to types of intellectual grace and moral beauty, is a 
just cause for pride and a fit subject for congratulations among our 
citizens. Well may we give a brief hour to the indulgence of such 
pride and the interchange of such congratulations. Happily there 
are no drawbacks to the satisfaction we may properly feel in the 
accomplishment of so important a work. Although hardly surpassed 
in exterior attractions by any building in our city, and uniting within, 
to elegance of finish, every accommodation that could be desired, 
through the sedulous care of the commission intrusted with its erec- 
tion, it has been kept within the limits of the original estimate, and 
now stands complete in all its parts, at a cost which need not dis- 
turb the serenity of the most cautious and prudent citizen. 

Whether we ought to have a high school, whether an institution 
offering advantages superior to those of our grammar schools has a 
rightful place in our system of public education, whether it is expe- 
dient or wise or just to provide in the general tax levy for the sup- 
port of such an institution, I wiU not now inquire. That question 



40 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

has been decided by our citizens ; and the experience of the last 
thirty-five years has, I think, abundantly vindicated their decision. 
As there are some, however, who are disposed to question its correct- 
ness ; who, though freely admitting, on the ground of the general wel- 
fare, the duty of providing for every child born the means of an 
education that shall fit him for the discharge of all the duties of a 
freeman, doubt the propriety or right of burdening the general tax- 
payer for training here and there a favored boy or girl for the higher 
walks and better conditions of life, it may be worth while to consider 
for a moment whether there be any just ground for the distinction 
here made. 

Is it more important that there should be honest and intelligent 
voters than that there should be able men, good and true, for whom 
they may cast their votes ? Is it more important to a community to 
have well - informed and industrious operatives than to have men of 
large intelligence and clear heads who may direct their labors and 
turn them into profitable channels ? Is an enlightened class of pro- 
ducers more essential to the business prosperity of the country than 
honest clerks, skillful accountants, capable and trusty agents, and able 
and sagacious business men and financiers ? At whose door lies the 
responsibility for the great losses and fearful commercial disasters of 
the last few years, and for the present depressed state of every spe- 
cies of industry? At whose door, I say, does the responsibility for 
these great evils lie ? Surely not at the door of the producing classes. 
The country is to-day full to repletion of the products of their labor. 
We must look higher up in society for the origin of our business 
troubles. Their fruitful source will be found in unwise investments, 
in incompetent management, in ignorance of the fundamental laws of 
trade and finance, in wild and reckless speculation, in enterprises not 
well considered and from the start doomed to failure, in lack of 
capacity for the organization and conduct of business, in breaches of 
trust, in failures of character, in defalcations and misappropriations, in 
fraud and trickery and dishonesty of all kinds among the better con. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 41 

ditionetl class, — among those who occupy pivotal positions, and con- 
trol by their movements, to a large extent, the business of the country ; 
who not only direct its industries, but receive, handle, and distribute 
their varied products. These higher places in society must be filled 
with a hio-her order of men before prosperity can be restored or busi- 
ness settle itself upon a sure and solid basis. For the training and 
preparation of such men we need all that our highest schools and 
best masters can do for them. These more advanced institutions of 
learning are as essential to the public welfare, and are, consequently, 
as much entitled to public support, as schools of a lower grade, where 
the pupils are fitted for the ordinary occupations and duties of life. 

But there is another question connected with our subject, that is 
not so easily answered : To what extent should provision be made at 
public expense for this higher education? Shall the doors of our 
school be thrown wide open, inviting all who may desire to enter? 
Or shall restrictions be placed upon admission, limiting the number 
to such as are, by character and attainment, prepared to avail 
themselves of its advantages, and as may be required by the inter- 
ests of the community to fill its more important places ? To ask this 
question, one would at first think, is to answer it. Nothing would 
seem clearer than that a system of public education, depending for its 
justification upon the requirement of the public welfare, should be 
kept within the limits of that requirement. Otherwise it loses its 
raison d'etre. The encouragement of tastes and aspirations for a kind 
of life which nature has not fitted one for is at best a questionable 
benefit. It should ever be remembered that schools do not make 
brain ; they only discipline and train it. The smith may go through 
the form of sharpening a sabre or knife; but if it lack steel, he can- 
not impart to it keenness of edge. In the struggle for place and 
power, rude strength will always get the better of educated feeble- 
ness. To turn, at public expense, those born with organizations fit- 
ting them to become good farmers or skillful mechanics into slow 
accovmtants, or incapable business agents, or dull teachers, or poor 



42 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

doctors, or ministers, or lawyers, is an injury to the individuals them- 
selves, as well as a wrong to the community. 

But his chief work as a public man is to be found in his con- 
nection with the State Board of Charities. The following ac- 
count of it, furnished by Professor Gammell, will show what it 
was for practical wisdom, for far-reaching benevolence, what a 
high order of ability it required, and what a success he achieved. 

After the return of Mr. Chace from his visit to Europe and the 
East, he was not without some solicitude as to the manner in which he 
might find occupation for his unaccustomed leisure. His life had been 
spent in the most uniform of all professions, in which the duties of 
nearly every day are prescribed by an unvarying rule. He had, how. 
ever, little considered how many things there are of public importance 
in every large community that will be done only by benevolent and 
public-spirited citizens, and especially how numerous are the demands 
which are sure to be made on an educated man of leisure who has any 
aptitude for affairs. It was not long before he found himself fully oc- 
cupied with new activities and cares. He had already, as early as 
1870, been chosen a trustee of the Butler Hospital for the Insane, 
and had become much interested in the work of that admirable insti- 
tution. He continued his connection with it for thirteen years. In 
May, 1874, a few months after his return, he was appointed by the 
governor of Rhode Island a member of the Board of State Charities 
and Corrections, a board which had been created a few years before 
for the management of the charitable and penal institutions belong- 
ing to the State. On taking his seat with his associates he was im- 
mediately chosen chairman of the board, and that position he contin- 
ued to fill till his resignation in October, 1883, when his health was 
beginning to fail. In November, 1875, he was chosen a trustee of the 
Rhode Island Hospital, and in June, 1877, he was made president of 
its corporation. This latter office he continued to hold to the end of 
his life. Of the duties pertaining to it he took broad and generous 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 43 

views, and gave a great deal of time to assisting in the beneficent work 
of the hospital. He also had the satisfaction of seeing its resources 
greatly increased and its usefulness enlarged during the period of his 
connection with it. 

It was, however, in the Board of State Charities and Corrections that 
his duties became by far the most engrossing. It was of the nature of 
a public trust, and having been but recently created by the State it 
had not yet completed the experimental period of its existence. It was 
also requiring large outlays of money, and was naturally regarded with 
some misgivings, which made its success a matter of the utmost impor- 
tance. This board, unlike those in other States, is not advisory in its 
functions, but purely administrative, and it exercises entire control 
over the institutions committed to its care, being responsible only to 
the legislature. Its members are always citizens of high character and 
superior intelligence, who serve without compensation. When Mr. 
Chace entered upon his duties the State Farm in Cranston, some seven 
miles from Providence, contained only three of the institutions now es- 
tablished there. These were the Almshouse, the House of Correction, 
and the Asylum for the Incurable Insane, and for these the buildings 
had not all been constructed. The legislature, however, had decided 
that the State Prison and the Providence County Jail should be placed 
there so soon as the requisite buildings could be erected ; and a com- 
mission had been created for erecting them, of which the chairman of 
the board was, ex officio^ a member. Subsequently the institution 
known as the Reform School of the City of Providence was transferred 
to the State, and additional buildings for separate reformatories for 
both sexes were built under the direction of the board. When these 
were completed, the establishment at the State Farm included six sepa- 
rate institutions, and in addition to these the board exercises an inciden- 
tal supervision of the jails in the several counties of the State. These 
institutions now require not less than thirty-five separate buildings for 
their accommodation, besides houses for officers, attendants, farmers, 
and laborers. Of these main buildings, ten are for the Asylum for the 



44 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

Incurable Insane, nine are for the Boys' Keformatory, six are for the 
State Prison and the County Jail, five are for the Almshouse, four are 
for the House of Correction, and one for the Girls' Reformatory. The 
larger part of these buildings were constructed while Mr. Chace was 
connected with the board, and more or less under his supervision. But 
in addition to the work of building, which was so long in progress, was 
the associated work of laying out the grounds embracing a farm of 
more than five hundred acres, of inclosing the entire estate and the 
allotments of the several institutions with suitable walls, of providing 
roads for access to them, of making advantageous arrangements for 
gaslight, for abundant water, and for a system of comprehensive drain- 
age. New legislation was also to be prepared for adoption by the 
General Assembly, and explained to its committees ; and, what was not 
unfrequently the most delicate and difficult task of all, suitable officers 
were to be selected and secured for the proper administration of a 
group of institutions so comprehensive and at the same time so diver- 
sified in their purposes and in the care which they required. 

To this entire work in all its branches Mr. Chace gave himself with 
extraordinary energy and zeal. It occupied all his time, and well-nigh 
all his thoughts, until its accomplishment was secured, and these im- 
portant institutions of the State were placed upon their present pros- 
perous footing, and under a system of administration reorganized and 
adjusted to their new and enlarged dimensions. In all this work he 
and his associates were in the fullest harmony and cooperation. His 
scientific knowledge, his careful judgment, and his weight of character 
gave them the assurance that he was a safe counselor and guide, while 
his conciliatory spirit and unfailing courtesy enabled him to harmonize 
varying opinions, and to secure entire unity of action in the discharge 
of every duty. Difficult and delicate negotiations were often intrusted 
to him, in full confidence that the views of the board and the interests 
of the State would in this way be best promoted, and the result always 
showed that this confidence had not been misplaced. Several of his 
associates with whom I have conversed have spoken in terms of the 



GEORGE IDE C HA CLE. 45 

warmest commendation of his judgment, of his executive capacity, his 
varied practical knowledge, his thoroughness in all investigations, his 
patience in all times of trial, his uniform courtesy, and his rare fit- 
ness to guide the deliberations and shape the action of the board. 
While he occupied this position he was largely engaged with its duties 
and cares, and some of these years, as he used to say, were among the 
busiest of his life. 

Before this work of construction and reorganization was entirely fin- 
ished, those who were nearest to him perceived that it was wearing 
upon his strength. He had already been admonished by an eminent 
physician whom he consulted that he was tasking himself with too 
many cares for the period of life which he had reached. He, however, 
did not remit them, though he practiced every prudence, till he saw the 
State Farm and its institutions brought to the condition contemplated 
in the plans which he had assisted in preparing, and administered ac- 
cording to the methods which he had advocated and caused to be 
adopted. He felt bound in honor and in religious duty to assist in 
carrying to its completion the important work whose execution had 
been intrusted to him and his associates. When this had been accom- 
plished he withdrew from the board in October, 1883, after a period 
of seinrice extending through nine years and five months, and when he 
had already passed his seventy-fifth birthday. His resignation was 
even then in accordance with the dictates of prudence rather than with 
his wishes, and his interests and his thoughts continued to linger amidst 
the State institutions which had been so long nurtured by his daily 
care. He, however, still continued his connection with the Rhode Isl- 
and Hospital and some other posts of disinterested service, to the end 
of his life. 

These closing years which Mr. Chace thus devoted to the institutions 
of philanthropy with which he became connected, and especially to the 
care of the comprehensive establishment at which the State of Rhode 
Island gathers its criminals, its pauper insane, its wayward children, 
and its dependent poor, make a fitting complement to his long period 



46 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

of service as a teacher of science at the university. Together they con- 
stitute a life of that order of usefulness and distinction vs^hich is always 
its own best eulogy, — a life faithfully and religiously spent in promot- 
ing the noblest interests of society and of mankind. 

And perhaps no more striking proof of what power there is 
in such an example could be given than is found in the tribute 
paid to him by Hon. Francis Wayland, of New Haven; Conn. 

In the course of the annual meeting of the National Prison 
Association, held at Detroit October 17-21, 1885, Professor 
Francis Wayland, Dean of Yale Law School, addressed the as- 
sociation as follows, Ex-President E. B. Hayes being in the 
chair : — 

Mr. Chairman, — Since our last annual meeting death has taken 
from us several of our most esteemed counselors and co-workers. The 
career of one of them so admirably illustrates the value of educated 
ability in the work of prison reform and furnishes so stimulating an 
example of self-denying devotion to duty that it deserves something 
more than passing mention. 

Professor George Ide Chace, LL. D., a vice-president of this body 
since its reorganization, was graduated at Brown University in 1830 
with the highest honors of his class. Summoned by his Alma Mater, 
a year later, to become a member of the faculty of instruction, he had, 
at the time of his retirement in 1872, filled with conspicuous ability 
every position from tutor to president. 

After eighteen months of well-earned rest which he spent in foreign 
travel, he returned to Providence greatly improved in health. He was 
then at an age when most men, after so many years of confining and 
monotonous labor, would have felt disposed to pass the remaining days 
in " the still air of delightful studies." But if such a temptation as- 
sailed Professor Chace, he resisted it manfully and successfully. He 
was very soon appointed a member, and a little later chairman, of the 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 47 

State Board of Charities and Corrections, an office which he held for 
nearly ten years. During the same period he was a trustee for the 
Butler Hospital for the Insane, and President of the Rhode Island 
Hospital. As has been well said : " To the promotion of the great in- 
terests of all these institutions he gave himself with zeal and devotion, 
occupied in thought and action with beneficent and Christian measures 
for the cure of the sick and the care of the insane and the reformation 
of the vicious." 

But what more immediately concerns us relates to his labors as chair- 
man of the Rhode Island State Board of Charities and Corrections. 
That the penal and correctional institutions of that enlightened, pro- 
gressive little commonwealth have reached such a praiseworthy condi- 
tion of excellence is largely due to the intelligent zeal with which Pro- 
fessor Chace devoted himself to this form of philanthropic effort. 

His active mind could not long be contented with methods which had 
nothing to justify their existence but the fact that they survived. In- 
deed, for a man of his years, he was singularly hospitable to new ideas 
if they gave fair or reasonable promise of good results. He sought in- 
formation in all directions, deferring with characteristic modesty to the 
opinions of those who had been longer in this field of labor than him- 
self, but taking nothing for granted which did not commend itself to 
his own deliberate judgment. He was thoroughly humane, without 
ever being betrayed into merely sentimental sympathy with the wrong- 
doer. In his view, the whole duty of society was not discharged by se- 
cluding the offender from contact with his fellows during a fixed term of 
imprisonment. He believed that reformation and imprisonment should 
go hand in hand ; that the inmate of a prison or jail should be encour- 
aged in every legitimate way to reenter the ranks of society as a re- 
claimed man. To this end he welcomed every available form of useful 
labor, every practicable scheme of instruction, the religious services of 
the chaplain, the faithful work of the Sabbath-school teacher. He 
held that these were all important factors in the work of reformation, 
elements of physical, mental, and moral discipline which would be in- 



48 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

valuable to the prisoner, if wisely employed and honestly accepted. At 
the same time, he never favored lavish expenditure. Guarding with 
scrupulous fidelity every trust confided to his care, he did not consider 
his official obligations fulfilled if he did not protect the interests of the 
tax-payer. While he did not regard an annual balance in favor of 
the State as the main thing to be aimed at by the board of control, he 
held that the public had a right to demand the strictest economy in 
prison management consistent with a wise system of prison reform. 

He knew that this was impossible without diligent attention to de- 
tails, and no small portion of his time was employed in regular and 
careful inspection of every branch of the service. 

He soon learned that the best subordinate officers are not too good 
to be kept under the watchful eye of adequate supervision. Accord- 
ingly, his visits to the institutions over which he presided were not only 
frequent, but were felt to be much more than formal. Every official 
was made aware that genuine worth would be appreciated and that no 
neglect of duty would be overlooked. Friendly with all, but familiar 
with none, he happily blended true dignity with kindly courtesy. He 
never turned a deaf ear to a meritorious applicant for mercy, and he 
was rarely deceived by spurious professions of reform. His intimate 
friends often speak of the surprise with which they beheld this man, ha- 
bituated for nearly half a century to the drill of the class-room, display 
as much aptitude for the superintendence of penal and correctional in- 
stitutions as if that had been his life work. 

It came simply from his habit of doing with conscientious thorough- 
ness, inspired and guided by a disciplined intellect, whatever service was 
required at his hands. 

Mr. Chairman, I am painfully conscious that this most imperfect 
tribute does scant justice to my early instructor and my life long friend. 
But he needs no commendation where he is known, and no memorial 
within the just limits of an occasion like this would fitly introduce him 
to a stranger. 

I beg leave to offer the following resolutions : - 



GEORGE IDE CIIACE. 49 

Resolved, that this association desires to place on record its high 
appreciation of the intelligent zeal, the untiring industry, and the un- 
selfish devotion with which our late associate, Professor George Ida 
Chace, LL. D., consecrated the closing years of his valuable life to the 
cause of prison reform. 

Resolved, that our lamented friend has left an example worthy of 
all imitation among educated men of the application of a carefully 
trained mind to the solution of important problems in the science of 
penology. 

The resolutions were unanimously adopted. 

Interwoven with the career thus sketched were other services 
rendered the public from time to time during his life. These 
were services in the form of public addresses or contributions to 
our periodical literature. Allusion has already been made to 
his lectures before the representatives of various manufacturing 
interests. But in public address he met what would be judged 
more exacting occasions. These were of two kinds ; occasional 
discourses and courses of lectures. He was a diofnilied and at- 
tractive speaker, never affecting the orator, rather always speak- 
ing as the teacher, and depending for effect on the force of 
his reasoning and the legitimate power of a very pure, clear, 
and, at times, chastely ornate style. He had, however, the ad- 
vantage of impressive bearing, and if the manner of address 
was far from studied oratory, it was attractive for its manly dig- 
nity, its perfect sincerity, and, on fit occasion, solemn earnest- 
ness of utterance. His oration before the Porter Rhetorical 
Society of Andover Theological Seminary, in 1854, gave rise 
to some discussion of the views advanced on the relation of 
Divine Providence to natural law. He was entirely prepared 
to encounter dissent from his views. This his catholic spirit 

4 



50 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

would readily tolerate. He was stung only when it was im- 
plied that such views carried with them essentially disbelief in 
the teachings of Scripture. It was with a just resentment that 
he repelled any such imputation. In reply to one such attack, 
alleging that " one for consistency's sake should renounce 
Christianity before he uttered such a philosophy," he wrote the 
following spirited disclaimer : — 

I cannot in silence suffer suspicion to be thus cast upon my earnest 
faith in that system of revealed truth upon which rests all hojae not 
only of my own personal salvation, but of the salvation of the race ; 
and with which I believe all the highest and best interests of mankind 
in this world to be most intimately connect«d. No man has a moral 
right to cast such a suspicion. There is not a word in the discourse, 
from the beginning to the end, to afford the slightest justification of it. 

There is here no intention of raking over the ashes of a 
buried controversy. All that is meant is to secure for his 
memory — possibly a work of supererogation now — the rec- 
ord that he believed his views to be in full harmony with the 
Scriptures, truly interpreted, and that they were views accepted, 
as he thought, by such Christian men of science as Professor 
Hitchcock, the eminent geologist of Amherst College, and Pro- 
fessor Dana, of Yale College. The discourse was, subsequent 
to delivery, published. It was an unalloyed gratification to its 
author that he received from Professor Dana a letter sympathiz- 
ing with his views and admiring his discourse : — 

New Haven, July 17, 1856. 

My dear Sir, — Your very acceptable letter was received some 

weeks since. The first article of yours to which you alluded I had 

seen, and the second one I immediately looked for and found. Both 

I have much enjoyed, admiring your views and your mode of presenting 



GEORGE IDE C II ACE. 51 

them. Tho Providence of God is a deep subject ; and perhaps none 
has received greater light from the progress of science than this. You 
allude to one branch of the subject without dwelling upon it, — the in- 
fluence over men and human events through action on the minds of men 
by the Divine Spirit. By enlarging on Providence from this point of 
view, you might make a valuable contribution to theological sci- 
ence. . . . With much esteem, very truly yours, 

James D. Dana. 

Apart from all debate as to the soundness of its views, there 
was no question as to its ability and beauty as an occasional 
discourse. The subject was one he had considered long and 
deeply. Some of its passages have rare finish, and the whole 
discussion shows with what profound interest he regarded the 
problems in which modern science and Divine revelation are 
both involved. 

Perhaps, however, the most successful of all his occasional 
discourses was that delivered in 1866, commemorating the life 
and services of President Wayland. Under that presidency 
the greater part of his professional career had been passed. 
Under it he had begun his career as teacher in the college. 
He enjoyed Dr. Wayland's confidence and friendship. In turn. 
Dr. Wayland leaned strongly on his counsels, was proud of his 
successes. The relation between them was one of affectionate 
esteem. The confidence of the one was met by the most de- 
voted loyalty of the other. All Professor Chace's heart was 
thus enlisted in the commemorative discourse. It was a mas- 
terly analysis of Dr. Wayland's powers, a well-w^eighed estimate 
of his great services to education, philanthropy, and religion. 
Its style was elevated, but all through the address the warmth 
of his personal attachment, the glow of his admiration, kindled 



52 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

his discussion. And the impassioned close was instantly recog- 
nized by all who heard it as the long pent-up outburst of an 
affection which had been gathering volume from the time in 
which he had sat as a pupil at the feet of his great master to 
the moment of its utterance. 

In the various courses of lectures Professor Chace was called 
on to deliver he certainly won high and deserved praise. A 
successful and brilliant experimenter when experiment was 
called for, gifted with the power to make abstruse questions 
clear to common minds, capable also of leading the more culti- 
vated and thoughtful into the higher relations of thought, his 
services were often called into requisition. His more noted 
courses of lectures were those before the Smithsonian Institu- 
tion at Washington, D. C. ; that before the Peabody Institute, 
Baltimore ; a course in Boston ; and one before the Newton 
Theological Seminary. The latter, never before published, is 
appended to this memorial. At their close the faculty of the 
seminary adopted the following minute, expressing their ap- 
preciation of the services he had rendered : — 

The faculty of the Newton Theological Institution feel constrained, 
as individuals and as a body, to put on record their high appreciation 
of the course of lectures delivered by Professor Chace. They are con- 
fident that the lectures have been of great service to the students, en- 
larging their knowledge in an important field of inquiry, quickening 
insight to discover proofs of intelligence in the objects and laws of the 
natural world, and confirming faith in the unity of the divine plan 
which enfolds both nature and revelation. They are gratified that the 
success of the course demonstrates the worth of this new line of in- 
struction and the wisdom of instituting it. They unite in expressing 
the desire that the lectures may in some way be given to the public, 
and reach a larger audience. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 53 

These lectures show a sustained power of discussion as well 
as the close and clear discrimination of a trained thinker. 
They bring him vividly before us in the light in which he loved 
best to stand, that of a scientific man endeavoring not so much 
to harmonize science and religion as to show the provinces of 
each, and that belief in the Divine revelation given us in the 
Scriptures rests on rational grounds. It is a gratifying thought 
that his laziest public utterance, an address before the Rhode 
Island Medical Society, in June, 1883, on " Theism from the 
Physician's Standpoint," shows him in the same attractive light. 

Professor Chace's contributions to periodical literature were 
numerous, considering the demands which his varied and inces- 
sant labors as a professor made upon him. It is noticeable that 
they are mainly devoted to the discussion of subjects not spe- 
cifically scientific, but involving more or less questions in the- 
ology or philosophy. His most valuable articles for the re- 
views will be found in the "Bibliotheca Sacra." They form 
a connected series of discussions in natural theology, and were 
contributed during the years 1848-50. He began the series 
with an article on the " Divine Agency in the Production of 
Natural Phenomena " (Bib. Sac, May, 1848). This was fol- 
lowed by one on " Spirit and the Constitution of Spiritual 
Beings " (Bib. Sac, November, 1848).. He furnished next an 
article on the " Natural Proofs of the Immortality of the Soul " 
(Bib. Sac, February, 1849). This, an elaborate and very acute 
criticism of Bp. Butler's celebrated chapter in his " Analogy," 
will be recognized by his students as having been given them 
during their study of the " Analogy " under him, and is the 
fruit of long and patient thought. This article was followed 
by one upon the " Dependence of the Mental Powers upon the 



54 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

Bodily Organization " (Bib. Sac, August, 1849), a subject cog- 
nate with the one he had just discussed. 

The series ends with two articles, " On the Existence and 
Natural Attributes of the Divine Being," " The Moral Attri- 
butes o£ the Divine Being " (Bib. Sac, April and October, 
1850). Of these articles Professor B. B. Edwards, then con- 
ducting the " Bibliotheca Sacra," wrote : " We esteem them, 
and that is the opinion of all who speak of them, as among the 
ablest and best written which we have ever had in our jour- 
nal." This is high praise, for Professor Edwards was a man of 
high ideals in everything, and the journal was at that time pub- 
lishing articles which gave it the highest rank among reviews of 
its order. 

A list of Professor Chace's more important contributions to 
the reviews will be found appended to this sketch. Two of 
them, that on the " Realm of Faith " (Baptist Quarterly, Janu- 
ary, 1871), and that reviewing Mr. Rowland G. Hazard's able 
work, " Man, a Creative First Cause " (Andover Review, De- 
cember, 1884), are reprinted in this volume. The lucid order 
of all his discussions, the grasp of the subject, the clear, vigor- 
ous, and polished style, qualities found in all his writings, show 
the secret of his success in this department, a field in which ten 
fail where one succeeds. Professor Chace was a master of Eng- 
lish. His sentences are, in terseness and energy of expression, 
models. His illustrations are felicitous, and when he uses orna- 
ment it is chaste and rich. The passages which here and there 
strike the reader for their beauty of thought and expression are 
numerous, and yet no one can regard them as other than aids 
to the enforcement of his views. The absolute and transparent 
sincerity of the man is seen in the writing. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 55 

Any formal analysis and estimate of Professor Chace's intel- 
lectual powers are needless, after such tributes from his col- 
leagues and pupils as this sketch has embodied, and after the 
enumeration of his labors and successes. But one point needs 
any further notice. Coupled with qualities and habits of mind 
fitting him for severe scientific reasoning and investigation 
there was a love of literature, which he found time always to 
gratify. It was his habit, after the severer toils of the day were 
over, to read aloud to his wife from the best authors, or to be 
read to by her. So they together traversed the pages of our 
choice poets, essayists, and historians. With Tennyson and 
Browning among modern poets he was specially familiar, while 
Milton and Shakespeare were his delights among the older. To 
the last, this companionship with our best authors was kept up, 
and much of that finer element in his written style as well as in 
his general culture was due to this familiarity with good letters. 

Of Professor Chace's Christian character it may be said that 
it was marked throughout by genuineness, depth, and catholicity. 
He made a profession of his faith in the outset of his career 
as teacher in the college, uniting himself with the First Baptist 
Church in Providence, and remaining in its communion till his 
death, his membership thus continuing for fifty years. The re- 
ligious atmosphere which surrounded his earlier Christian experi- 
ence was one peculiar to the time. Habits of severe and gloom- 
breeding introspection, and a vigorous imposition of external 
tests as marks of discipleship, too much predominated. But 
the letters of Professor Chace to intimate friends at this period, 
though too full of sacred personal experiences to be put under 
the eyes of the public, show a simple, warm, sometimes almost 
tearful love to his Saviour, which would seem strange to those 



56 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

who thought mainly of his life as reserved, if not cold. It is 
difficult to understand how the impression was created that he 
was of skeptical tendency. Nothing in his correspondence shows 
it. It is easy to misinterpret the working of a mind which asks 
for grounds of belief. In the days of an unquestioning faith, 
even to inquire seems disloyalty to the truth, and to doubt is to 
side with the unbeliever. Professor Chace held with Sir William 
Hamilton that doubt had its legitimate province. " We doubt 
in order that we may believe ; we begin that we may not end in 
doubt. We doubt once that we may believe always ; we re- 
nounce authority that we may follow reason -, we surrender opin- 
ions that we may obtain knowledge. We must be protestants, 
not infidels, in philosophy." ^ He subjected his beliefs to care- 
ful examination, but from the beginning to the end of his career 
he was a sincere and full believer in the great truths of the 
revealed word of God. 

He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 

He would not make his judgment blind ; 

He faced the spectres of the mind, 
And laid them : thus he came at length 

To find a stronger faith his own 

And Power was with him in the night 

Which makes the darkness and the light, 
And dwells not in the light alone, 

But in the darkness and the cloud, 

As over Sinai's peaks of old 

While Israel made them gods of gold, 
Although the trumpet blew so loud. 

There was also in his piety an emotional element, not indeed 

1 See Sir William Hamilton's Lectures on Metaphysics, Am. ed. p. 64. 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 57 

easily stirred, never in fact roused by mere appeals, but which 
on fit occasion and in the view of the great truths of religion, 
natural or revealed, was sure to manifest itself. In his letters 
there are found many and touching expressions of his gratitude 
to God. His scientific investigations leading him up to these 
high thoughts of God, often left him the grateful worshipper 
where he had begun as the scientific investigator. And in all 
the later labors of charity which he undertook, sympathy — all 
the deeper because so genuine — was an unfailing stimulus to 
their performance. This emotional side may have been not 
often shown, but those who knew hmi intimately, knew was not 
wanting in him. It was mostly known, indeed, in the sacred 
privacies of his own home. And yet on occasions it could not 
hide itself away. An instance of what depth and tenderness 
were in his emotional nature is given in the following letter 
to his sister, describing a scene in church of which he had 
been witness : — 

Providence, June 9, 1861. 

My dear Sister, — I have been present to-day at one of the most 
impressive scenes which it has ever been my lot to witness. Our sec- 
ond regiment of troops leave this week for the seat of war. This 
morning they attended worship at our church. They occupied the 
whole body of the church. The Governor, together with his stafP of 
high officers, was with them. The flag of our country floated from the 
spire of the church, and on the inside of the church, the pulpit and the 
wall on either side of the jjulpit was covered with flags. Our pastor 
preached a most faithful and earnest discourse, made more solemn by 
the thought that many present were probably listening for the last time 
to the preached word of God in the Christian sanctuary. The text was 
from Isaiah 52d chapter, 11th and 12th verses : " Be ye clean, that 
bear the vessels of the Lord. For ye shall not go out with haste, nor 



58 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

go by flight ; for the Lord will go before you ; and the God of Israel 
will be your rearward." The discourse will probably be printed, in 
which case I will send you a copy. Some portions of it were very 
moving. Dr. Wayland made the opening prayer. It was a sublime lift- 
ing up to the throne of grace of the whole regiment together with the 
holy cause in defense of which they were about to offer up, if need be, 
their lives. I am not so easily moved as I once was, and yet the tears 
ran in streams down my cheeks during the whole prayer. 

The catholicity which marked his religious life is one of its 
conspicuous traits. He was a Baptist by conviction, and he was 
always loyal to his church. His devotion to it increased with 
his years. But he was in the fullest fellowship with all true 
believers. No belief of his was any bar to the heartiest apprecia- 
tion of all true churches of our Lord Jesus Christ. In a letter 
to his sister written from Geneva, 1872, he makes this striking 
remark : " I have been in communities Protestant and Catho- 
lic, of every variety of faith and sect, vdthout perceiving those 
differences of character which we are accustomed to associate 
with differences of belief. I am persuaded that the church con- 
victions of men leave the deeper elements of character less al- 
tered than we suppose." 

There were forms of Christian service also in which he was 
ever ready to engage. Repeatedly during his busiest profes- 
sional career he gave his time to the instruction of Bible 
classes. These were sometimes formed of students from the 
college, sometimes of young and middle-aged business men. 
They were held in connection with the Sunday-school of the 
First Baptist Church. The book of Scripture he chose to teach 
was the Book of Proverbs. He regarded its ethics as the 
soundest and timeliest practical instruction. It was his delight 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 59 

to find the same root for Hebrew and for Christian ethics in the 
unchangeable laws of right. One of his pupils writes in refer- 
ence to these Bible classes : " Among our college note-books 
especially do we value the one in which are recorded the rich 
practical thoughts which Sunday after Sunday were brought to 
our notice in these lessons, so full of the wisdom of Solomon." 
During the year 1851-52 he was superintendent of the First 
Baptist Sunday-school, a post he resigned only because his la- 
bors at that time in other directions had become too much for 
his strength. It is eminently characteristic of him that, as his 
carefully written report shows, his first aim in assuming the of- 
fice was " to elevate the instruction of the school, and give to 
it unity of aim and character and spirit." He sought accord- 
ingly " means of awakening a deeper interest in the study of 
the Bible, and of imparting larger and more comprehensive and 
more affecting views of Christian truth." In the same line of 
work he was accustomed to give lectures to companies of stu- 
dents or to congregations, in which the relations of science and 
religion were discussed. One such course, followed by large au- 
diences, was given at the Central Baptist Church in the winter 
and spring of 1869. The class of 1870 in Brown University 
sent him a petition for a " series of Sunday afternoon lectures 
concerning the relations existing between science and revealed 
religion," and the petition states in its preamble that it had been 
" his custom of late to favor the senior class with a series of 
Sunday afternoon lectures." 

Nothing could better illustrate the spirit by which all his 
Christian work was prompted than an address given before the 
Women's City Missionary Society of the city of Providence, No- 
vember 10, 1879. The address itself is one of great force and 



60 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

beauty ; but an emphasis is added to the whole from the fact 
that his labors in the same direction had chastened his spirit, 
and that the keen practical vision which was so quick to see the 
wiser methods of reformatory effort was suffused with a tender 
and gracious Christian compassion. There is one portion of the 
address which may well stand as the embodiment of his later 
Christian services. And those who love and cherish his memory 
will gladly see it reproduced in this memorial, as the medium 
through which they may look to contemplate the life of this 
gifted man of science, this beloved and honored teacher : — 

I have been asked for suggestions as to the best means of reaching 
the classes for whose benefit your missions are especially intended. 
Were my experience in laboring for the good of others far greater than 
it has been, I should hardly venture to indicate any change in methods 
of which the wisdom, in your hands, has been strikingly vindicated. 
The work of making men better is found by all who have tried no 
easy task. The labors of philanthropy, in whatever direction, are of all 
labors the most discouraging. " Set thyself to do good," says the East- 
ern sage, " and thou shalt have sweet moments and bitter hours." It 
is everywhere and under all circumstances up-hill work ; and too often, 
when we hope we have succeeded in helping an erring brother to attain 
a higher moral footing, like the stone of the fabled Sisyphus he de- 
scends with a bound to the level from which he started. In the strug- 
gle to overcome the evil in the world by natural forces, the odds are 
greatly against us. Depraved and selfish natures, low desires clam- 
orous for gratification, vicious tastes and habits constantly gaining 
strength from indulgence, with a perpetual environment of tempta- 
tions, are to be contended with. In this struggle, mere physical ap- 
pliances are unavailing. They may for a time restrain the evil pro- 
pensities, but they have no power to cure them. Statesmanship has 
labored for thousands of years at the dark problem, but has found no 
solution. Its wisest laws and its best institutions have served only to 



GEORGE IDE CIIACE. 61 

abate somewhat the evils springing- from man's corrupt nature. Phi- 
losophy stands appalled at the magnitude of these evils, and confesses 
herself unequal to grappling with them. There is only one remedy. 
That remedy is the quickening of the moral sentiments which lie dor- 
mant in every human bosom. The final battle between good and evil 
is to be fought in individual souls. It is regenerated men and women 
that are to regenerate society and the world. 

It becomes, then, a question of the highest importance how the moral 
energies slumbering in every soul can be best aroused and brought 
into conflict with the hitherto controlling forces of evil, and a victory 
and permanent control over the latter be gained ; how a worldly char- 
acter, moidded by the requirements of interest, can be made to give 
place to one of nobler type, ever prompting its possessor to works of 
beneficence and charity. 

So far as our instrumentality is concerned, the question seems to me 
not a difficult one to answer. We must bring ourselves into the closest 
possible relation with those whom we seek to benefit. Our moral im- 
pulses must quicken theirs ; our characters must help to form and ele- 
vate theirs. It is useless to attempt awakening in others sentiments 
we do not ourselves feel, or imparting to them ideals which we do not 
in our daily lives embody and exemplify. It is not the sermon, but 
the man back of the sermon, that reaches the hearts and consciences of 
his hearers. It is not eloquence of speech that gives power to the ex- 
hortations of the Christian brother, but his known character and life. 
Unless these be in harmony with his words, the latter fall powerless 
upon the ear of the listener, or awaken in him only disgust. Pure, 
genuine feeling is the most persuasive of exhorters. A noble Christian 
character is the most eloquent of preachers. 

I have said the closer we place ourselves to those whom we would 
make better, the greater will be our influence over them. For the full- 
est effect, it should be mind to mind, heart to heart, soul to soul. 
When the prophet would impart of his own life to the dead son of the 
Shunamite, he stretched himself upon the child, and put his mouth 



62 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his 
hands. We have in this a symbol of the relationship most favorable 
to the impartation of spiritual life ; or, to borrow another illustration 
from the Scriptures, the leaven must be diffused through the mass, in 
contact with every part of it, in order that the whole lump be leavened. 
Its modifying power is strictly limited to that which it touches. 

There are some who, in addition to an abounding Christian charity, 
possess a rare spiritual tact by which they feel their way into the 
depths of the soul, and there touch with healing finger the springs of 
thought and action. Although this God-given power is denied to most 
of us, genuine love to our neighbor and an earnest desire to do him 
good, with a proper regard to propriety of manner and occasion, will 
open the way to his better feelings and bring him within the sphere 
of our Christian influence. No one, of however humble abilities, need 
fear that his efforts, if put forth for the Master and in his spirit, will 
be in vain. The water that is spilt upon the ground, and cannot be 
gathered up, is not wholly lost. It in due time makes the earth 
greener. 

But it is not enough that the moral sentiments be wakened and 
brought into an active state. They must be strengthened and fortified 
against the temptations of interest and the assaults of appetite and pas- 
sion by assiduous culture. The Christian care, instruction, and over- 
sight of those who have commenced a new life, the shielding of them 
from the dangers of evil companionship, is of the greatest importance. 
It cannot be neglected without imminent peril to the good work begun. 
The seed that fell by the wayside, had the fowls been kept away from 
it, might have struck root into the hard and trodden earth, and in due 
time brought forth fruit. If the soil of the stony ground had been 
deepened by culture, the seed that sprung upon it so quickly would not 
as quickly have withered away. 

I should be unjust to them, and fail in my duty to you, if I omitted 
to say there is another side to the picture. Large numbers even of 
those who by their errors and indiscretions have exposed themselves to 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 63 

the law, and been committed to the guardianship and keeping of the 
State, when removed from the temptations which society phices around 
them, are found to be kind-hearted, faithful to their obligations, and 
ready when opportunity offers to help others. They are by nature 
weak rather than bad. They are quite as much the victims of society 
as of their own vicious appetites and desires. I have sometimes thought 
that if our Saviour was now on earth He would find among these his 
chosen field of labor, — that turning from the proud Pharisee, from 
those who cry Lord, Lord, who prophesy in his name and in his name 
do many wonderful works, He would seek among these humble and 
erring ones his lost sheep, — that He would hunt in this, to the human 
eye, unpromising ground, for the lost pieces of silver. 

The life thus commemorated ended April 29, 1885. The 
end came after months of patient waiting, full of Christian 
calmness, and sacred, in view of the anticipated departure, with 
affections that grew only more tender and blessed to the end. 
He had been told in the summer before that a mortal disease 
was upon him. Friends could only note in him a shade more 
of gravity, subduing his habitual cheerfulness into quiet resig- 
nation. It was never his characteristic to dwell on the past. 
In active life, he was wont far more to be thinking of the fu- 
ture, what more he might do, how life could be brought on- 
ward into nobler fruitage. And so he fixed his eye on the 
great immortality. His faith in Jesus Christ imparted abiding 
and sustaining hopes. Together with her, who had been for 
many years the gracious and stimulating helper of his labors by 
her unfailing sympathies and truest counsels ; who had made 
his home the centre of his being ; with whom he had traversed 
much of our best literature, and whose life had been to him the 
most prized of earthly blessings, he loved to repeat these lines 
of Mrs. Barbauld : — 



64 • GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

Life ! We 've been long together, 

Through pleasant and through cloudy weather : 

'T is hard to part when friends are dear ; 

Perhaps 't will cost a sigh, a tear ; 

Then steal away, give little warning, 

Choose thine own time. 
Say not Good-Night, but in some brighter clime 

Bid me Good-Morning. 

The last hours were hours of delirium. But through this 
the religious spirit was seen in the broken prayers, so simple, 
yet so touching; and once the face was lighted up with an 
unearthly glow, as if foregleams of the blessed immortality 
had been vouchsafed the dying sufferer. All was serenity 
and perfect peace in that hour when his spirit returned to 
God who gave it. The funeral services were held in the 
First Baptist Meeting-house, at eleven o'clock, on the Satur- 
day morning following. The service was simple — in strict 
accordance with the wishes of the dead ; his pastor, the Rev. 
T. Edwin Brown, D. D., reading the customary Scripture les- 
son, and offering an impressive prayer. The hymns, " Abide 
with me," and, " Lead, kindly light," were sung by the choir. 
The mortal remains were taken to Swan Point Cemetery for 
interment. There they rest, near the city he loved so much, 
and in which, for more than half a century, he had lived and 
labored. 

The tidings of his death carried grief into a wide circle. 
The city of Providence felt it not only as a public loss, but 
to many of its circles the loss was keenly personal. The city 
journals all gave utterance to the general sorrow. The relig- 
ious and secular press of other cities, the journals of education, 
ull united in the tribute to his memory, as of one who had 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 65 

brightened and blessed life for many, who had been a faithful 
steward of God's gifts, and in whom life, in the blending of 
scholarly acquirements with Christian faith, had reached rare 
completeness and fullness. -Every institution with which he had 
been connected, from the college where he had so long labored 
to the hospital he had so devotedly cared for, passed resolutions 
of respect to his memory. And when the annual Commence- 
ment of the college came, at which for so many years his 
figure had been among the most conspicuous, eagerly sought for 
by his old pupils, and the alumni came together at their annual 
meeting, the one thought weighing on all hearts was that Pro- 
fessor Chace had gone from them. The deep sense of bereave- 
ment was only quickened when the announcement came that he 
had given new proof of his unfaltering love for the college he 
had served so long and so brilliantly by a bequest securing 
two scholarships, one of $4,000 and the other of $5,000 in 
value, to be awarded by the faculty. The sense of his gener- 
osity, as well as of his thoughtful devotion to the institution, 
only made the grief over his departure more poignant. The 
deep feeling of the alumni found expression in addresses, two 
of which are here given : — 

Professor John L. Lincoln offered the following tribute of respect 
to the late Professor George I. Chace, which was ordered to be entered 
on the minutes of the meeting: : — 

The members of the Alumni Association, assembled at their annual 
reunion, desire to express their deep regret at the death of George 
Ide Chace, a graduate of the class of 1830, and a teacher in the uni- 
versity for more than forty years. Some of our number remember 
him with love as a fellow-student, very many with profound respect 
and gratitude as an instructor, and all of us with admiration and 

5 



66 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

pride as an ever dutiful and honored son of our common Alma Mater. 
The promise which he gave in youth, by his high rank as a student 
and a scholar in his under-graduate course, was amply fulfilled by the 
numerous and eminently successful and useful services which he ren- 
dered in manhood and age, both within and without the walls of the uni- 
versity. In looking back over his brilliant career as a college teacher, 
we observe as one of its signal distinctions the variety and diversity 
of the departments in which he gave instruction, and also their great 
value as means of education. Beginning with mathematics and me- 
chanical philosophy, he was afterwards, for more than thirty years, a 
professor in different departments of physical science ; and finally, in 
obedience to the call of the university, at a critical period of its his- 
tory, he gave himself to the teaching of metaphysics and ethics. His 
rare ability in all these sciences, both in the investigation and in the 
communication of truth; his clearness and fullness of comprehension 
in the statement of principles, and his skill and aptness in their illus- 
tration ; the stimulating influence of his instructions towards the pur- 
suit and acquisition of sound knowledge, and their moulding moral 
force in producing right habits of thinking and noble forms of char- 
acter, — all these will ever be cherished by his pupils among the choic- 
est memories of their college education, and be treasured in the history 
of our university among the best elements of its fame and usefulness. 
And while we thus recall, as alumni of this university, the useful 
services of Professor Chace's long professional career, we would not 
forget the new course of service, no less useful, on which he entered 
at the completion of that career. He might reasonably have then 
sought a studious retirement, where he might spend his declining years 
in meditation upon the elevated themes of philosophy and religion so 
familiar to him by nature and by habit. But so strong were his ten- 
dencies to useful action, he saw so keenly the need of such action in 
the world, the good that imperatively needed to be done and the evil 
to be undone, that he then gave himself with fresh zeal and devotion 
to the promotion of the great interests of philanthropy, morality, and 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 67 

religion, in connection with charitable and public institutions in Ehode 
Island. This feature of Professor Chace's life and character reminds 
one of the words of a Latin poet, said of a great Roman, who was a 
man alike of action and of thought : — 

" Nil actum credens, diimquid superesset agendum." 

So it was with Professor Chace, that he thought " nothing done so 
long as anything remained to be done." So was it, also, with him as 
a Christian man, that with the aim and spirit of a life to be lived not 
for self, but for others, he gave his best thoughts and efforts to wise 
and beneficent measures for the cure of the sick, for the care of the 
insane, the instruction of the ignorant, and the reformation of the 
vicious. Such was the end that crowned the work of his life. 

The alumni, desiring to preserve his memory, direct that this min- 
ute be entered upon their records ; also that a copy of it be sent to 
Mrs. Chace. 

Colonel William Goddard then addressed the Alumni as 
follows : — 

Any tribute of respect to the memory of Professor Chace would 
command my warm approval. But I think it is peculiarly fitting 
that the alumni of Brown University should confess their obligations 
to this great teacher, and record their high respect for his memory. 
While in all the relations of life his character and services must 
challenge our admiration, it was within these college walls that this 
good tree brought forth its best fruit. Here for forty years he 
worked with unremitting zeal, teaching and testifying the value of lib- 
eral studies and of exact scientific investigations, and patiently strug- 
gling with the dullness of apprehension and the undeveloped faculties 
of generations of his pupils. And what a work it was ! He imparted 
instruction in more branches of learning than any teacher I ever 
knew, and his knowledge of each was accurate. He impressed his 
pupils with the importance of thorough preparation by study, but he 
had the gift, possessed only by the really great teachers, of developing 



68 GEORGE IDE CHACE. 

their powers of reasoning and of disclosing to them the undiscovered 
paths of original investigation. And he taught them what may be 
done with life by those who know how to employ it. I do not think 
Professor Chace was endowed with what is called personal magnetism. 
His manners were constrained and sometimes even severe. But no 
student who came in contact with him ever doubted the warmth of his 
heart and the justness of his character any more than he questioned 
his intellectual powers. His hold upon his pupils was therefore due 
to no fascination of manners, to no merely artificial gifts. It was 
founded upon faith in the man, and it was enforced by the range and 
acuteness of an intellect whose power has never, in my judgment, 
been fully estimated. His pupils were content to lean upon his strong 
arm as he upheld the torch which illumined the dark mines of sci- 
ence, and they listened with eagerness and rapture to the voice that 
made clear the mysteries of metaphysical studies and declared to them 
the eternal verities of Christian philosophy. And so to-day the grad- 
uates of the old college, in whose service he spent so much of his 
honorable life, pause amid these festal scenes to recall with grateful 
hearts all that this illustrious teacher has done, and in broken accents 
to speak once more of their love and veneration for him. His toil 
was long — let us who enjoy its fruits hold his name and services in 
perpetual remembrance. 

Mr. President, a less magnanimous man than Professor Chace might 
have grieved over the treatment he received from the government of 
the college after he ceased to be one of its ofiicei-s of instruction. It 
is to the lasting discredit of the corporation that they constantly 
refused to admit this man to any part in the government of the uni- 
versity for whose highest interest he had done so much, and whose 
welfare was always an object of his deepest concern. But Professor 
Chace knew how to distinguish between the college and its govern- 
ment ; between catholic and comprehensive aims and purposes, and 
the narrowness of sect and petty individual jealousies. He never 
faltered in his love for the old college, happy in the thought that 



GEORGE IDE CHACE. 69 

" the boys would stand by him." The kindly voice of our great 
teacher is hushed forever ; the hand which guided us through the 
paths of learning is stiffened in death ; but the boys stand by his 
memory as he stood by us, when "the night was dark and we were far 
from home." 

The reward of a teacher is found, most of all, in the grati- 
tude and veneration of his pupils. In days of student -life 
they may not always fully appreciate his worth. But in after 
years, when the perception of what worth was in the teacher 
and his teachings becomes more clear and ripened powers en- 
able a truer estimate, then the tribute surely comes. It is the 
high meed of praise due Professor Chace that the tribute laid 
on his honored grave, in the reverent and affectionate esteem of 
the long line of his pupils, began in college days, only to grow 
deeper, stronger, and purer throughout life. 



LIST OF CONTEIBUTIONS TO REVIEWS. 



Of the Dependence of the Mental Powers upon the Bodily Orga- 
nization. Bihliotheca Sacra, August, 1849, pp. 534-558. 
Of the Natural Proofs of the Immortality of the Soul. Bihliotheca 

Sacra, February, 1849, pp. 48-75. 
Bowen's Lectures. (Metaphysical and Ethical Science and the Evidences 

of Religion.) The Christian Review, January, 1850, pp. 78-94. 
Of the Existence and Natural Attributes of the Divine Being. 

Bihliotheca Sacra, April, 1850, pp. 328-352. 
Of the Divine Agency in the Production of Material Phenomena. 

Bihliotheca Sacra, May, 1848, pp. 342-357. 
Of Spirit and the Constitution of Spiritual Beings. Bihliotheca 

Sacra, November, 1848, pp. 633-650. 
Of the Moral Attributes of the Divine Being. Bihliotheca Sacra, 

October, 1850, pp. 668-696. 
Origin of the Human Race. The Christian Review, April, 1851, pp. 

226-244. 
Sir William Hamilton's Discussions. (Philosophy and Literature.) 

The Christian Review, January, 1854, pp. 39-72. 
The Persistence of Physical Laws. North American Review, July, 

1855, pp. 159-194. 
The Causal Judgment. The Baptist Quarterly, April, 1869, pp. 157- 

167. 
The Realm of Faith. The Baptist Quarterly, January, 1871, pp. 42-57. 
Review of Rowland G. Hazard's "Man a Creative First Cause." 

Andover Review, Decemher 1884. 



LECTURES AND ESSAYS. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD.^ 



LECTURE I. 

The argument for an intelligent Author of nature, from the 
indications of design in the world around us, though not wholly 
discredited, has been held in much less esteem of late years 
than formerly. Several causes have contributed to this. In 
the first place, the physical sciences, while they have vastly en- 
larged our conceptions of the material universe, and enabled us 
to trace back, step by step, a multitude of phenomena to the 
sources from which they immediately spring, discover in these 
sources no indications of a personal intelligence or will. All 
that science reveals is a mysterious and inscrutable energy, in- 
separable from matter, and determined in its manifestations 
solely by physical conditions. When these conditions are sup- 
plied, the manifestation takes place, no matter what the attend- 
ant circumstances or the immediate results ; as well for evil as 
for good ; as readily for destroying life as for saving it. The 
power awakened is heedless of all moral distinctions, and blind 
to the consequences of its own action. This absence of any 
appearance of will or purpose in the activities of nature has led 
men of science to seek an explanation of her adaptations and 
harmonies in theories of spontaneous evolution. Assuming the 
eternity of matter and force, they have attempted from these 

1 This course of lectures was delivered before the Faculty and Students of the 
Newton Theological Institution in the winter of 1876. 



74 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

data alone to solve the problem of the universe. The whole 
world, organic and inorganic, has been put under contribution 
for analogies and facts in support of some of these theories. 
The comparatively recent doctrine of the conservation of energy, 
which makes force, like matter, indestructible, however far from 
being established, has been pressed into their service. Popular- 
ized and brought to a level with all understandings, the idea of 
creation as a mere series of developments has been disseminated 
through lectures, through periodicals, and through books, until 
the universal mind has become affected by it, and men who by 
no means accept the teaching are inclined to regard with less 
favor the argument of Paley and Butler, and, indeed, all rea- 
soning from what are called final causes. They seek other war- 
rant for their belief in an intelligent author and moral governor 
of the universe. 

In the second place, the many and confessedly great difficul- 
ties attendant upon every form of theism ; the origin and con- 
tinued existence of moral and physical evil, and the extent to 
which they cast their dark shadow over human society, des- 
tined, as most creeds teach us, not gradually to melt away and 
at length disappear, but to stretch onward to another world, 
there only to become darker and more appalling ; the part 
which chance seems to play in human affairs ; the irregulari- 
ties and disorders everywhere apparent, virtue overborne and 
vice prosperous, merit neglected and charlatanry of every kind 
rewarded ; and, I may add, the dumbness of oracles and the 
silence of the grave, — these have driven minds of a certain 
cast, in which feeling and sentiment predominate over the log- 
ical faculty, from the beliefs of the race into a vague, dreamy 
pantheism. Without attempting its correlation with actual phe- 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 75 

nomena, they imagine through all nature a certain mysterious 
energy, impersonal and unconscious, ever welling up out of the 
bosom of what we call matter, and filling all around with its 
myriad creations. These creations, after a transient and merely 
phenomenal existence, sink back to the source from which they 
came. Man, the highest of them, is but a bubble on a vast 
ocean. The bubble breaks, and the tiny drops mingle with the 
mass of waters, again to be thrown up at some other point with 
a form equally evanescent. This species of mystic and un- 
formulated pantheism, entirely unlike that of Spinoza, which, 
though resting upon an insecure foundation, was faultlessly log- 
ical in structure, has found its way, to a large extent, into mod- 
ern literature, — remarkably in contrast in this respect with that 
of the Elizabethan age, — and is through this exerting upon 
multitudes its seductive and enervating influence. Its very 
vagueness makes it only the more dangerous. If without the 
veil of sentiment, which is thrown over it, it were clearly and 
nakedly presented, it would lose all its attractions. The de- 
mands of neither head nor heart would be satisfied by it. It 
is through the power of imagery and the charms of language 
that the subtle poison finds its way to the soul. With those 
who have come under its palsying effect, reasoning of any kind 
is rarely of much avail. But argument from design, the force 
of which is not admitted, would seem in their case to be espe- 
cially inappropriate. 

In the third place, on account of the difficulties met in prov- 
ing the existence of a personal God from the works of creation, 
many devout thinkers have turned from the outward world to 
the mind itself, to reach through this, if possible, the same 
result by a shorter and more direct method ; to find a sure basis 



76 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

for their belief, not in argument, but in immediate intuitions, 
in the ideas of the reason, in the affirmations of the intelli- 
gence, in the sense of duty, in the feeling of dependence, in 
the impulse to worship, — in a word, in what has been called 
the God-consciousness of the soul, underlying and giving sup- 
port to all the different faiths which have swayed mankind. 
While not disposed to undervalue these inner testimonies to 
the sublimest as well as the most important of truths, and be- 
lieving fully that the mind is constituted in harmony with it, 
I am still inclined to think that the most direct and sure way of 
arriving at a knowledge of the being and attributes of God is 
through His works. We cannot in any proper sense be said to 
be conscious of His existence. Our assurance of the fact must 
come from the manifestations which He has made of Himself. 
We must learn from these, if at all, his character. A priori 
reasoning has here no place. Neither can we pass, by inference, 
from mere ideas in the mind to corresponding outward realities. 
Unless the Creator has left the marks of his hand upon the 
things which He has made, without a direct revelation we must 
forever remain in ignorance of Him. The signs of intelligence 
as well as of power, of design and purpose visible in every 
part of creation, must furnish the clue to a knowledge of its 
author. Nor need we fear mistake or deception in following it. 
It is in the direction of the natural and habitual movement of 
the rational faculty. The process is similar to that by which 
we become acquainted with the characters of our fellow-men. 
The inferences involved, though not, perhaps, so immediate, are 
of the same nature and equally legitimate. 

Nor is the argument for the divine existence from the indi- 
cations of mind in the world around us weakened or in any 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 77 

manner affected by recent discoveries in science. These, by ex- 
tending the area of our knowledge, have only enlarged the 
premises from which it derives its conclusion. Science has noth- 
ing to do with the origin of phenomena. Beyond their mere 
observation and classification, its office is strictly limited to the 
ascertainment of the conditions and order of their occurrence. 
It has no line long enough to fathom the source from which a 
single jjhenomenon arises. Its want of knowledge here is abso- 
lute. The hypothesis of material atoms and of attraction and 
repulsion, energies proceeding from them, by which it seeks to 
supply this want, is a pure figment of the unagination. The 
origin and nature of the forces which appear in matter are as 
inscrutable to science as the thoughts of the Infinite One. All 
that can be said is that they emerge, if not from absolute 
points, from spheres so inconceivably minute that the most pow- 
erful microscope utterly fails to disclose them. The intimate 
movements of the atoms, if such they be, upon which all out- 
ward visible changes are dependent, are hidden from human 
view by an impenetrable veil. The continuous efforts of the 
most powerful intellects for forty centuries have failed to lift a 
single corner of it. The realm beneath that veil will continue 
to be, as heretofore, a region of conjecture and hypothesis ; and 
every adequate hypothesis will include an insoluble mystery, — 
the emergence of force which, whether from something or from 
nothing, is as unthinkable as creation. In truth, the explana- 
tory power of the hypothesis depends upon the nucleus of su- 
pernaturalism, which it enfolds. God is embosomed in it. The 
mere sciolist does not perceive this. But men of deeper insight, 
such as the Tyndalls, the Huxleys, and the Spencers, are com- 
pelled to acknowledge it, though in language less explicit than 
could be desired. 



78 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

The only way in which modern investigation has influenced, 
or can be imagined hereafter, however far it may be carried, to 
influence natural theology, is in furnishing ampler, better, and 
better assorted materials for the construction of the science. 
The foundations upon which the science rests are quite out of 
its reach. Should any of the theories of evolution on which 
minds of a speculative tendency have been at work for so many 
centuries ever be established, they will come in merely as illus- 
trations of the mode of the divine working. 

Nor is the argument from design weakened or neutralized by 
the reveries of a bewildered and bewildering pantheism. On 
the contrary, it cuts right through the mist and haze, and opens 
to view the clear azure beyond. If there is anything that will 
rouse the mystic dreamer to a right, manly, and vigorous use of 
his reasoning faculties, it is to confront him on the one hand 
with the evidences of design in nature, and on the other with 
the mighty power within or behind nature, ceaselessly carrying 
forward, through her vast machinery, the beneficent ends so 
manifestly had in view. If, when thus brought face to face 
with the power of God and the certified works of God, his 
dreams do not dissolve, nothing, it would seem, short of the 
visible presence of the Being whose existence he refuses to 
admit would be sufficient to dispel them. 

I am persuaded that theism has lost ground in suffering it- 
self to be drawn away from the old beaten track marked out so 
long ago by Hebrew prophets and Grecian sages, into new and 
more direct paths supposed to lead to the same end. By no other 
road can the mind arrive at such assurance of a personal Deity. 
In no other way can it hope to learn the attributes of that 
Deity. It is through final, and not through efficient, causes 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 79 

that the divine character is revealed. It is by studying these, 
and these alone, that we become acquainted with it. All other 
proposed ways, whether starting from the data of consciousness, 
or from outward, observed phenomena, if strictly followed, con- 
duct us only to " an unknown and inscrutable reality lying be- 
hind appearances," to borrow the language of Herbert Spencer, 
or, in the bolder and franker words of Mr. Tyndall, to a recog- 
nition in " that matter which we in our ignorance have hitherto 
covered with opprobrium " of " the promise and potency of 
every form and quality of life." I assume, in saying this, that 
the validity of the causal intuition is admitted. If it is not, if 
the authority of this be rejected, then there remains only the 
idealism of Hume or the phenomenalism of Compte. The surest 
defense against any of the forms of unbelief is a solid wall of 
theism, having its foundation in the evidences of thought and 
purpose in nature, and buttressed and coped by the truths of 
revelation. Such a theism, while furnishing efficient correctives 
for the vagaries of the imagination and intellect, would also ad- 
minister deserved rebuke to the bitterness of sects and the nar- 
rowness of creeds. A broader and more beneficent lig-ht would 
shine from it upon all God's creatures. In that light many sup- 
posed difficulties would vanish. I propose, therefore, briefly to 
state and examine the argument for the divine existence from 
the indications of intelligence and design in the outward world, 
and see whether it have indeed lost its claim to our respect and 
confidence, or whether it still remains intact alike in its prem- 
ises, in its reasoning, and in the conclusion to which it conducts 
us ; nay, whether that conclusion be not supported and con- 
firmed by all collateral testimonies. Something of this kind, if 
I mistake not, is demanded by the pressure and drift of the 



80 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

times. The air is heavy with unbelief. It is not merely a 
questioning of scriptural or traditional dogma. The doubt ex- 
tends to the foundations of religious faith. When men eminent 
in science tell us that everything lying beyond the sphere of 
the senses is but " lunar politics," of which we know nothing 
and can know nothing, and about which it is a waste of time to 
speculate ; when the astronomer refuses to admit the existence 
of God because he cannot with his telescope see Him rolling the 
spheres through space ; and the chemist withholds his assent to 
the reality of spirit because he cannot precipitate it in a beaker 
glass, or obtain it as a residue in an evaporating dish, or collect 
it as a distillate in an alembic, it does not become the Christian 
theist to keep silence. Beliefs more precious to him than life, 
which impart to existence its dignity and worth ; beliefs more 
important to the welfare of mankind than all that science has 
achieved, or ever can achieve ; beliefs essential to the continu- 
ance and safety of organized society, are ruthlessly attacked, and 
it behooves him to appear in their defense, and with all sincer- 
ity and truthfulness show the grounds of the faith that is in 
him. 

NATURE OF THE ARGUMENT. 

The argument for an intelligent Creator from the indications 
of design in the outward world rests primarily on the causal 
judgment, — one of the clearest affirmations of the intelligence. 
Ex nihilo, nihil Jit. Nothing can come into existence of itself. 
Events do not happen. For every change, wherever or when- 
ever occurring, there must be a cause or causes adequate to pro- 
duce it. The requirement of adequacy, in respect to both na- 
ture and efficiency, is included in the judgment, and is as 



THE EXISTENCE OF- GOD. 81 

absolute as the requirement of cause. If the change observed 
have manifest relation to something beyond as an end, we as- 
cribe intelligence to the source from which it proceeds. If the 
end is perceived to be worthy and good, the evidence of intelli- 
gence becomes clearer, and is less open to question. As intelli- 
gence can be conceived to manifest itself in action only through 
will, we ascribe this also to the cause producing the change. 

If a large number of specially adopted movements or changes 
look to the same end, the inference of power back of them, act- 
ing under the guidance of intelligence and by direction of will, 
is proportionally strengthened. 

If many ends, diverse in character, but all worthy, are reached 
each by appropriate means, we have there the strongest assur- 
ance possible of the concurrence of intelligence and will, as well 
as power in securing them. 

If these ends appear in turn as means to high ends, and these 
to yet higher, until they are all at length merged in the single 
end of ministry to happiness, we are then led by the causal judg- 
ment to ascribe benevolence as well as power, intelligence, and 
will to the author of the contrivances. Benevolence is an at- 
tribute of character. Its manifestation is evidence of character. 
We have then in the author of the supposed contrivance all the 
attributes essential to personality. A being endowed with in- 
telligence and possessing will, power, and character, is a person 
in the fullest sense of the word. 

It is immaterial to the argument in what manner the cause 
acts, — whether mediately or immediately, whether during each 
successive moment of time or once for all time. It is the re- 
sult of the action, objects accomplished by it, that disclose the 
character of the actor. Words do not express ideas less clearly 



82 ■ THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

on account of the complex apparatus of brain, nerves, and mus- 
cles intervening between the thought and its vocal sign. It is 
only when our attention is called to the subject that we think 
of the interposed mechanisms. A constitution of government 
whose wise provisions continue to yield their beneficent fruits 
through many successive generations affords evidence of as 
large an intelligence and humanity as a work whose benefits are 
more immediate. 

If the end is not reached directly, but by the use of means and 
instrumentalities, the indications of mind are not the less clear 
on this account. On the contrary, we have in the devices for 
securing the end proof of mind in higher and more prolonged 
action. Eemoteness of end and complexity in the means em- 
ployed for attaining it suppose a corresponding extent of con- 
trivance and reach of design. An article for use or wear, as a 
spade or a boot, when made by hand, is proof of intelligence 
and purpose. But it is evidence of a higher degree of intelli- 
gence and of a larger purpose when it is the rapid and contin- 
uous product of ingeniously constructed machinery. 

The numerous discoveries and inventions by which natural 
forces have been brought under human control, and the still 
more numerous contrivances by which these forces, when thus 
under control, have been made so largely tributary to the well- 
being of society and the progress of the race, are among the 
highest evidences of mind as well as the noblest proof of its dig- 
nity and worth afforded by modern times. Should we imagine 
discovery and invention still to go forward, until at length the 
whole realm of nature should be brought under the dominion of 
man, and all her agents be made subservient to his uses, and the 
burden of toil be finally lifted from human shoulders, no loftier 
conception of the achievement of mere intellect could be formed. 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 83 

Were such an imagined state of things to be realized, I may 
here remark, and were a being of a lower order of intelligence to 
be admitted to the scene, seeing everything that could gratify 
the desire of man spontaneously produced and delivered to his 
hand, he would naturally seek an explanation of the wonderful 
phenomenon. Finding only shafts and wheels and arms and 
levers in rapid movement, the point where the power was ap- 
plied being hidden from sight, he might suppose they contained 
within themselves the cause of their motions. If the period of 
observation were brief, so that no change was noticed in the ma- 
chinery or in its working, he might come to the conclusion that 
it had always existed and always been in operation ; or if signs 
of former changes were discovered incompatible with this hy- 
pothesis, he might suppose that it was self-formed as well as 
self-acting. Would this be more remarkable than the analogous 
conclusion reached by men who are no mean thinkers touching 
the works of God ? 

The kind of reasoning whose nature and validity I have en- 
deavored to show is so familiar to us, we are so constantly 
practicing it, the steps in it are so short and so rapidly taken, 
that we are scarcely aware that it is reasoning. We mistake 
mere logical deductions for immediate perceptions. In fact, how- 
ever, mind is never an object of direct apprehension. Its exist- 
ence is only inferred from signs. These may be directly exhib- 
ited by the being himself, or they may appear in his works. In 
either case the knowledge derived from them is inferential, and 
inferential only. The human mind is no more seen, is no more 
an object of sense, than that mighty Intelligence the overshad- 
owings of whose power in nature fill us with awe when we con- 
template them. It is from these everywhere present manifesta- 



84 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

tions of duty that the plain, unlettered mah and the intelligent 
savage even unconsciously draw their simple but sublime con- 
clusion. 

Upon those who reject the authority of the causal judgment 

— fortunately their number is small, it is hardly necessary to say 

— this kind of reasoning, when extended beyond the boundaries 
of experience, can have little or no influence. For them theol- 
ogy as a science is impossible. Like philosophy it derives its 
support from an intuition, to which this restricted class of 
thinkers deny a place in the intelligence. 

APPLICATION OF THE ARGUMENT. 

Dr. Paley, in seeking for proofs of an intelligent Creator, 
extends his survey over the whole of organic and inorganic 
nature. Everywhere he finds the indications of design. These 
are most striking, however (and the evidence here comes home 
most strongly to us) in the structures of plants and animals. 
Among these structures, the human eye and ear naturally hold 
a prominent place in his argument. In no part of our organiza- 
tion is the evidence of contrivance and purpose clearer. In no 
part do we discover the signs of an intelligence more completely 
human. The eye is an optical instrument, as truly so as the 
microscope or telescope, or the camera obscura, which it more 
nearly resembles. It acts upon light in the same manner, and 
like that forms in its dark chamber an exact image or picture 
of whatever is before it with a knowledge of the end to be at- 
tained ; and with the right materials and suitable instruments 
at our command, we should have constructed a similar organ. 
In like manner the ear is merely an acoustic instrument. It is 
formed on principles which we perfectly understand, and which 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 85 

we ourselves embody in analogous structures. The mechanism 
of the brain and nervous system comes much less within our 
comprehension. We have little knowledge of their structure, 
and still less knowledge of the endowments by which they are 
fitted to perform their important functions. Did we under- 
stand the way in which the nerves on the one hand transmit to 
the sensorium impressions received from without, and on the 
other convey the mandates of the will to the muscles, we should 
undoubtedly have proof of a much larger intelligence and a 
higher and wider range of contrivance than is witnessed in any 
of the merely mechanical parts of the body. Did we compre- 
hend the functions of the brain, could we look in upon it, 
and see how it ministers to sensation, to perception, to thought, 
to feeling, and to will, we should perceive in this wonderful 
structure which bridges the impassable gulf separating matter 
from spirit and establishes a way for intercourse between them, 
evidence of knowledge, skill, and inventive resource, in the 
presence of which the signs of intelligence in other parts re- 
ferred to would fade into dimness and obscurity. 

But it is not from the eye, or the ear, or the heart, or the 
hand, or the brain, or from any other of the organs or members 
of the body, or from all of them united and built up into the 
perfect man, that we gain, as I think, our strongest impres- 
sions of the exhaustless resources of the divine contrivance, but 
from the vast system of terrestrial machinery, deriving its mo- 
tive power from the sun, by which, through specially devised 
attachments, eyes and ears and hearts and hands and brains 
are continually being formed, and through whose ceaseless 
working human beings, complete in all their parts, and innu- 
merable other beings, animal and vegetable, equally perfect, are 
every moment coming by countless myriads into existence. 



86 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

The ordinary nail, by its manifest adaptation to a special use, 
affords evidence of thought and purpose on the part of the in- 
ventor; but how much more the nail - machine, on one side 
craunching with its steel jaws the bars of iron presented to it, 
and on the other delivering in a continuous stream the finished 
product. The invention of the screw followed that of the nail. 
It supposes more thought and a higher degree of intelligence. 
But how little of mind does this show in comparison with the 
machinery of the screw factory, at one of whose doors enter 
coils of rusty wire, while at the other passes out, untouched by 
hand, the completed manufacture. The textile coverings with 
which we protect and adorn ourselves were not invented at 
once. It is only through many successive improvements, each 
the product of thought, that they have become what they are. 
We cannot look upon them without realizing this. But how 
much more strongly are we impressed with the power of mind 
when we go through one of the ten thousand mills which are 
flooding the world with their diverse and beautiful fabrics. So 
it is in nature. Our profoundest impressions of exhaustlessness 
in power of contrivance do not come from mere organized struc- 
tures, however replete with evidences of thought and purpose 
they may be, but from the combination of agencies and instru- 
mentalities by which, out of materials the most unpromising, 
their production is everywhere going forward. By processes 
to us wholly inscrutable, air, water, and earth are transmuted 
into the substance of wood and bark, leaf and flower ; of bone 
and muscle, nerve and sinew. In ways which we do not un- 
derstand, and by agencies of which we are profoundly ignorant, 
the products of this subtle alchemy are wrought into vegetable 
and animal organs ; and these in like manner are built into the 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 87 

structures of the innumerable and endlessly diversified beings 
by which our globe is tenanted. Well might the preacher de- 
rive his most striking illustration of the marvelous and incom- 
prehensible ways of the divine working from " how the bones 
do grow in the womb of her that is with child." In that cham- 
ber of mystery and power are wrought miracles as great as any 
of those which two thousand years ago made the shores of the 
Galilean lake immortal. Every living thing has its origin in 
darkness and mystery to the human eye and mind equally pro- 
found. 

But may we not find an explanation of all the terrestrial phe- 
nomena, it will be asked, in the properties of matter ? May not 
" the promise and potency of every form and quality of life " 
be discovered in the primordial constituents of being ? May we 
not suppose these in proper collocation to have evolved by their 
interaction the entire system of things with which we find our- 
selves connected ? Has not time been long enough ? Are not 
the energies revealed in matter sufiiciently enduring and suffi- 
ciently obedient to law? 

Waiving the grave difficulties attending this hypothesis, and 
passing over the very slender foundation upon which it rests, 
let us entertain it for a moment and see what bearing it has 
upon our argument. Does it enable us to dispense with intelli- 
gence ? Does the hypothesis do anything more than carry to 
a point further back the application of its directive power? 
Would the proper endowment and placing of the primordial 
atoms require no thought — an endowment and placing such 
that, by their definitely regulated interaction continued on 
through the cosmic ages, they should in the end of time achieve 
the marvels of life and intelligence which we behold around us ? 



88 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

To infuse the required energy into the nebulous matter and 
start movements, which, traveling down the eons of eternity, 
shall at length, organization of system and planet completed, 
converge, and, by and by, meeting in an eye or heart or hand 
or brain, shall secure to it its wonderful endowments : would 
this demand no effort of mind ? On the contrary, would it not 
suppose an intelligence which, flashing along the lines of ante- 
cedent and consequent, should take in at a glance all the possi- 
bilities offered by original chaos of atoms ? Should the so- 
called development hypothesis be ever established on the basis 
of observation and induction, which I deem highly improbable, 
it could lead us legitimately only to sublime conceptions of the 
attributes of Deity. Instead of embarrassing theism, it would 
assist in removing difficulties attending it. It would explain, 
for instance, in a satisfactory manner the origin of certain ex- 
isting forms of life, which it is not easy to imagine God could 
have taken pleasure in directly creating. If the argument for 
the divine existence derived from this wider and more profound 
view of nature be less convincing than the argument from spe- 
cial structures, it is because the mind, overwhelmed and para- 
lyzed by the vastness of the premises, moves with enfeebled 
energy to the conclusion. A larger and stronger intelligence 
would arrive at the truth with as much certaint}^, and hold it 
with as firm a grasp. 

The doctrine of evolution, though in itself perfectly compati- 
ble with a sublime theism, when grafted upon the hypothesis of 
the eternity of matter becomes the very stronghold of material- 
ism. In fact, the two hypotheses united constitute materialism, 
and the only form of it that an intelligent man can entertain. 
In this form it is not unfrequent among men of science, and 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 89 

there are perhaps few thoughtful persons who have not, at mo- 
ments when faith was weak, felt its depressing influences. Why 
not suppose, it is said, the material atoms to be self -existent, and 
by interactions dependent upon their inherent energies to have 
organized the universe? Why suppose an eternal, self -existent 
Being, who has created and endowed these atoms, and assigned 
to each its place and work ? Is not the first the simpler hy- 
pothesis ? Does it not involve less that is incomprehensible and 
unimaginable ? Does it not explain equally well the phenom- 
ena? Is it not wholly relieved of the moral difficulties with 
which theism has always been pressed ? Are we not therefore 
bound in reason to prefer it ? 

This view of nature, which lies at the bottom of so much of 
the unbelief of our times, may assume either a materialistic or 
pantheistic phase, according to the nature attributed to the 
primary constituents of being. I shall not enter upon an exam- 
ination of it at the present time, but shall make it the special 
' subject of my next lecture. I will only say now, that the hy- 
pothesis, even in its lowest and materialistic form, if it were 
philosophically admissible, which I beHeve it is not, and if it 
were compatible with observed phenomena and the received doc- 
trines of science, Avhich I hope to show it is not, would by no 
means preclude the supposition of a mighty intelligence pervad- 
ing every part of the universe — an intelligence not preceding 
and determining the organization of the universe, but developed 
throuirh that orofanization. If, in the case of ourselves, as this 
class of philosophers inform us, molecular agitations and neu- 
ral tremors appear in consciousness, as sensations, perceptions, 
thought, feeling, purpose, and will, why may we not suppose 
the universal restlessness of matter, the intense movements by 



90 THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 

which its particles are everywhere agitated, the inconceivably 
rapid vibrations which are ceaselessly coursing its huge and ag- 
gregated masses, why may we not suppose these vast and rhyth- 
mic movements, extending through all nature, to give being to 
an Infinite and Supreme Mind endowed with the attribute of 
omniscience? Will it be said that it is only in nerve substance 
that molecular movements evolve thought ? Is there any war- 
rant for such an assumption ? Would it not be a species of 
anthropomorphism grosser than ever has been charged upon 
theism ? 

The conclusions thus far reached are, that in establishing 
the existence of a personal God, we must rely chiefly upon the 
evidence of design in nature. 

That arguments derived from other sources are only accessory 
and corroborative. 

That the discoveries of modern science have not undermined 
the teleological argument, but, on the contrary, have laid a 
broader and deeper foundation for it, and have, moreover, fur- 
nished ampler, better, and better-assorted materials for its con- 
struction. 

That the argument rests primarily upon the causal judgment. 

That all its inferences have the warrant of that judgment, 
and that they do not differ at all in kind from inferences upon 
which we are continually acting in the ordinary affairs of life. 

That the intelligence and design manifested in the structure 
of the animal organs is so entirely human in character, that we 
not only understand perfectly many of these organs, but our- 
selves construct instruments closely resembling them in princi- 
ple and in purpose. 

That it is not in the eye or ear or heart or brain, or in any of 



THE EXISTENCE OF GOD. 91 

the animal organs, or in the entire animal structure, that we 
witness the most impressive exhibitions of intelligence and 
design, but in the adjustments of that vast system of machinery 
by which, out of materials the most unpromising, eyes and ears 
and hearts and brains are everywhere being formed and built 
into the structure of the living animal. 

That the development hypothesis, supposing it were to be 
established, would not enable us to dispense with intelligence, 
but only carry to a point further back the application of its 
directive power. And, finally. 

That even materialism, consistently carried out, does not pre- 
clude the supposition of a mighty Intelligence pervading every 
part of the universe. 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF THE DEVELOP- 
MENT HYPOTHESIS. 



LECTURE II. 

In my former lecture I expressed the belief that the doctrine 
of evolution was by itself compatible with the loftiest theism, 
and that should it ever be established on a solid basis, which 
I thought highly improbable, it could legitimately conduct us 
only to sublime conceptions of the mode of the divine work- 
ing. But when associated with another and quite different 
hypothesis — that of the eternal and independent existence of 
matter — it becomes the main pillar and chief support of mate- 
rialism. It is in this association, and only in this, that I pro- 
pose in the present lecture to consider it. 

The doctrine of evolution being admitted, matter and force, 
it is said, are all that is required for solving the problem of the 
universe. Why not suppose matter and force, or rather matter 
embosoming force, to be eternal ? Is not this in all respects 
preferable to the difficult and hardly conceivable hypothesis of 
its creation ? Is it not simpler ? Does it not account equally 
well for all the phenomena ? Does it not escape the difficulties 
and embarrassments which attend the supposition of an intelli- 
gent Author and moral Governor of the world ? 

In examining this hypothesis, which from its imagined sim- 
plicity is so seductive to merely theoretic minds, and which in 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT 93 

one form or another has always found advocates, I shall inquire 
first, Is it philosophically admissible ? Secondly, Is it in ac- 
cordance with observed phenomena and the received doctrines 
of science ? 

Before wjb can answer these inquiries, we must know what 
the hypothesis includes ; what other subordinate hypotheses are 
infolded in it. On a very slight examination, the following 
contents will, I think, be distinctly recognized : — 

1. The eternity and self-existence of matter. 

2. The evolution of the existing order of things through 
the long-continued interaction of its primary molecules ; and 
through that alone. 

3. The production of mind by certain groupings of these 
same molecules, and the awakening of thought and feeling by 
their interaction while thus associated. 

Let us see what is included in the first of these hypotheses — 
the eternity and self-existence of matter. What is matter ? Of 
what does it consist? What is the nature of its primary con- 
stituents, or the molecules of which it is supposed to be built 
up ? What are these molecules so marvelously endowed ? What 
is their intimate constitution ? 

For a very long time physicists were content to regard them 
as simple unities, or atoms, as they were called, suj^posed to be 
indestructible and unalterable. This view of their constitution 
answered all the demands made upon them in explaining the 
known facts of science. It, moreover, seemed to be supported 
and confirmed by laws regulating their combination, which were 
discovered by Mr. Dalton, near the beginning of the present 
century. Since that time, until very recently, the atomic theory 
has been accepted as an established doctrine, has held a promi- 



94 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

nent place in all treatises on chemistry and physics. Within a 
few years past, however, facts have been brought to light which, 
refusing explanation on that theory, demand a radical change 
in our ideas of the elementary constituents of bodies. Under 
the brilliant light cast upon them by the spectroscope, — that 
newest instrument of investigation which has already done so 
much for the enlargement of our knowledge, — under the bril- 
liant light of the spectroscope, the hitherto supposed atoms 
expand into clusters of worlds. Each little world, held in its 
place by an exact balance of forces, has its own separate and dis- 
tinct movements, while it partakes of the more general motions 
of the system to which it belongs. The constitution of one of 
these molecules is shown by the lines in the spectrum obtained 
by passing the light emitted by the substance when intensely 
heated, and in the state of a vapor or gas, through a succession 
of prisms. The number of lines in the spectrum indicates the 
number of separate parts contained in the molecule, and the 
position and color of the lines, the tensions at which the parts 
are severally held by the forces pervading and animating the 
minute structure. The molecules of the same elementary sub- 
stance give always the same number of lines, of the same colors, 
and occupying the same positions in the spectrum. The mole- 
cules of different elementary substances give different systems of 
colored lines, indicating corresponding differences in constitu- 
tion, — that is in the number and tension of their component 
parts. Each one of the elements has its own characteristic spec- 
trum. Nitrogen, oxygen, and iron give each a great number of 
separate lines of nearly all the colors of the solar spectrum, indi- 
cating a remarkable degree of complexity in the constitution of 
their molecules. Hydrogen gives a much smaller number of 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 95 

orange and blue lines, while sodium gives a single yellow line. 
This, however, under a high refractive force, opens into two 
closely approximated and parallel lines, the color remaining the 
same. 

It is on the identity of the spectra given by the molecules of 
the same substance that spectral analysis is based, a mode of 
research by which the physicist not only detects the minutest 
portion of any of the elements, in air, earth, or water, but ex- 
plores the realms of space, and finds in other worlds and suns 
than our own the same elements, with molecules constituted in 
precisely the same manner. Hydrogen and the vapors of iron, 
manganese, nickel, chromium, potassium, sodium, calcium, and 
magnesium in the sun ! Water in several of the planets ! 
Hydrogen, bismuth, antimony, sodium, magnesium, and mercury 
in the fixed stars ; and in the scarcely discernible nebulae, hang- 
ing upon the outskirts of creation, and not yet shaped into 
worlds, hydrogen, the omnipresent element, and associated with 
it nitrogen ! How wonderful these facts ! and how much more 
wonderful that man on his little planet should have been able 
to discover them ! This vast extension of our knowledge, af- 
fording ground for the presumption of unity of composition and 
structure throughout the entire universe, confers upon the pri- 
mary constituents of matter an interest not before possessed by 
them. These elementary molecules, so complex in structure, 
embodying forces so inscrutable and yet so obedient to law, 
presenting differences of constitution in the different kinds of 
matter, but in the same kind always in precisely the same way, 
and brought to exactly the same weight and same measure, 
whence are they ? Under what conditions have they been 
formed ? These infinitesimal structures, so minute as to be be- 



96 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

yond the reach of the most powerful microscope, and yet con- 
taining each within itself a subtle mechanism ; these prepared 
materials and instruments ready for the worlds, how have they 
come into existence ? Chance will not account for them. The 
law of the survival of the fittest, supposed to have exerted so 
powerful an influence in the organic world, can have had no 
part in their production. They must have been formed under 
the guidance of mind, or have had no beginning. Either a 
Being eternal and self-existent must have specially prepared 
them with all their adaptations for the sublime end of building 
up a universe, and peopling it with moral intelligences, or else 
they must have always existed without object or purpose, not 
merely in countless myriads, but in numbers immeasurably sur- 
passing the possibilities of thought ; and although individually 
separate and distinct, yet so correlated, that by their interaction 
continued through a past eternity, they have evolved along with 
innumerable other and vastly larger worlds the little one which 
we inhabit, with its exhaustless provisions for the support of life 
and its teeming population. Such is the dilemma in which we 
are placed. Can we for a moment hesitate which horn to take ? 
Does it admit of question which of the two hypotheses is the 
simpler, the more philosophical, or the more in consonance with 
every part of our nature, rational, moral, and religious ? 

But we have just entered upon the embarrassments which en- 
viron the materialist. The present system of things bears evi- 
dent marks of transitoriness. It has had a beginning in time, 
and unless sustained by a power from without it will come to 
an end in time. The signs of growth or decay, or of both 
growth and decay, are visible in every part of it. Many such 
systems might have come successively into existence, and have 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 97 

run one after another their courses, and yet have hardly 
touched the resources of a past eternity. 

Two sides are presented by every true picture of the uni- 
verse. With one of these sides the public has been made fa- 
miliar by the astronomer and the geologist. Emergence from 
chaos, organization, growth, development, these are the charac- 
teristics of the familiar side. On the other side are equally un- 
mistakable indications of decline, waste, decay, and final disso- 
lution. These two sides belong as truly to a portrait of nature 
as she sits to us, as to a picture of human life. To be satisfied 
of this, we have only to glance at two or three well-known facts. 

The earth is dependent upon the sun for its productive pow- 
ers. Without a constant supply of heat and light from that 
central orb, all the activities on its surface would quickly cease. 
It is the sun that lifts the watery vapor from the ocean to be 
formed in the upper air into clouds, which are borne by the 
winds, the sun's carriers, over island and continent, dispensing 
in fertilizing showers their wealth of water. It is the sun that 
opens the soil to the genial influences of sjDring, and quickens 
into life and growth the innumerable organisms held in its 
bosom. It is the sun, working in the microscopic laboratories 
of the plant, that enables it to effect transformations so marvel- 
lous to perform before our eyes, and under our hands the mir- 
acle of turning stones into bread. Water power, wind power, 
steam power, electric power, animal power, all these arc but 
altered forms of sun power. It is that which keeps in motion 
the whole terrestrial machinery. Let the pulses of solar energy 
no longer reach our planet, and the animated scene of which it 
is now the theatre would shortly disappear. In a stillness and 
silence more profound than that of death, it would roll a ten- 
antless ball through space. 



98 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

But a very small part of the sun's rays are intercepted by the 
earth. An incomparably larger portion continue their course 
unobstructed and without utilization till they are lost in the in- 
finite depths of ether. To a thoughtful mind there are few 
things more impressive than this amazing and ceaseless waste of 
solar energy. It is not of a day or a year. It has continued 
through all past time. During the entire lapse of the geologic 
ages enough of sun power has been each moment expended in 
merely awaking ethereal undulations, to clothe with verdure and 
beauty, and fill with life, more than two billion such worlds as 
ours. The other suns of our firmament aro wasting in like 
manner their stores of energy. Somo of them are believed to 
be at present hotter than our own. Others have already de- 
clined to an inferior temperature. These differences are so 
marked that astronomers have made them the basis of classifica- 
tion. They tell us which of the myriad suns are the oldest and 
furthest spent, and which have come most recently from the 
glowing forge of the almighty Artificer. They are all, how- 
ever, lavishly spending the primordial forces with which they 
were stored, and it is only a matter of time when the hottest of 
them, if no higher power intervene, shall have exerted the last 
ethereal wave, and sunk to the temperature of surrounding 
space. When this condition of equilibrium shall have become 
universal change will cease; for change is everywhere born of 
the conflict of unequal forces. The motive power of the uni- 
verse will have been spent. Nature, like a clock, has run down 
and stopped. Like a clock, it must be wound up anew before it 
will start again. The fires under the boiler have gone out, and 
the engine has ceased to move. They must be rekindled, or it 
will remain permanently at rest. Were matter eternal, however 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 99 

unequally we may suppose the forces connected with it to have 
been originally distributed, they must, long ages before the 
commencement of the present order of things, have lost their ca- 
pacity for work by coming to a state of equilibrium. When this 
passive state had once been reached, it would have continued 
forever. Only a power above nature could redistribute the 
forces, and enable them again to do work. 

Let it not be supposed that the view here set forth is at vari- 
ance with the doctrine of the conservation of energy. On the 
contrary, it fully recognizes that doctrine. The decline of tem- 
perature experienced by the suns of our firmament is not owing 
to the destruction of any part of the forces originally impris- 
oned within these. These forces are, and have been from the 
beginning, continually escaping. They still exist, but have lost 
their capacity for work. They are no longer available for cos- 
mic purposes. They have passed from the orbs into which they 
were gathered, and are now traversing in ethereal waves the 
heights and depths of space, or rippling, if such there exist, on 
its far-distant shores. Their tendency still is to diffusion and 
equalization. They have no power to gather themselves up and 
return to the bodies from which they emanated. As well might 
the weight of the run-down clock regain without aid its previous 
working position ; or the exhausted and scattered steam reen- 
ter the cylinder, and drive anew the piston. For gathering up 
and restoring to these suns their lost energy, an almighty Hand 
is demanded ; and without such restoration their days are num- 
bered. 

It has been suggested that the decaying fires of our sun may 
be from time to time rekindled, by the planets one after another 
plunging in upon it. This, however, would only prolong the 



100 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

period of its activity. The end would be the same. The last 
planet would at length impart, by its shock, the last addition 
of heat, and the process of refrigeration would from that time 
go on without interruption. 

Another suggestion has been made which is worthy of con- 
sideration only on account of the respectable source from which 
it comes. Mr. Herbert Spencer supposes that the heat evolved 
by the impact of the planets upon the sun, as they shall be suc- 
cessively drawn in and absorbed by it, may be sufficient to bring 
all the matter in our system into a nebulous condition, and thus 
make way for the emergence of a new system out of the ruins 
of the old. This new system, after having run its orderly 
course, he supposes to furnish in like manner by its final dis- 
ruption the material for a third system ; and so on indefinitely. 
How Mr. Spencer could have been drawn into an hypothesis so 
extravagant, looking backwards as well as forwards, it is not easy 
to imagine. Any well-instructed physicist would have informed 
him that the heat evolved by the supposed collision would at 
most be only sufficient to throw the planets back to their primi- 
tive orbits, without any rise of temperature either in the sun or 
in themselves. To bring the matter belonging to our system 
into its original nebulous condition, there must be added to this 
all the heat that has exhaled from it, from the time when it first 
floated as a glowing cloud in space down to the present hour, 
and all the heat that will hereafter exhale from its different 
members until the moment of the supposed impact of the last 
planet. There is not a fact or analogy even suggesting the 
return, by natural causes, of this enormous amount of escaped 
heat to the bodies with which it was originally associated. Such 
a return would be in direct opposition to the law of diffusion 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 101 

governing the movements of caloric, and, as already stated, 
would require the interposition of supernatural agencies. When 
this theory of the universe was first proposed by the celebrated 
Kant, the law of equivalency governing the conversion of force 
into heat, and of heat again into force, was not known. Had 
he been aware of the existence of this law, he could hardly have 
entertained so wild a supposition. The fundamental hypothesis 
of materialism is therefore untenable. It does not explain in 
a satisfactory manner any of the phenomena of nature, and is 
quite incompatible with some of the most marked and strik- 
ing of these phenomena. The universe has had a beginning, 
and, unless sustained by a power without itself, will come to 
an end. It is therefore not eternal. The universe was not 
built up by natural forces out of the ruins of one which j)re- 
ceded it. Neither can it furnish in its dissolution material for 
the construction, under natural laws, of another to succeed it. 
It is, therefore, not one of an eternal series of universes. It 
must then have come into existence through supernatural 
agency ; or, in other words, by the fiat of an almighty and om- 
niscient Creator. 

But we have not done with our subject. Other difficulties 
of scarcely less magnitude than those already encountered lie in 
the path of consistent, philosophic materialism. I will advert to 
three of them only: (1) the transition from inorganic nature to 
the living structures of plants and animals ; (2) the passage from 
the lower and simpler to the higher and more complex types of 
organized life ; (3) the leap from extension to thought, or from 
mere material properties to the endowments of mind. Of the 
second of these difficulties we have Mr. Darwin's proposed solu- 
tion. Of the first and third nothing approaching the character 



102 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

of a scientific explanation has been attempted. He would be 
a bold man who, in this last half of the nineteenth century, 
should undertake to show how the molecules of inorganic mat- 
ter, under no other guidance than their own affinities, may in 
the beginning have come together and united so as to form liv- 
ing plants and animals. The most that any one could do would 
be to assert the possibility of this, without being able to adduce 
a single fact in support of the assertion. The supposed cases 
of spontaneous generation which once gave plausibility to such 
an hypothesis, under the sharper scrutiny of modern investiga- 
tion aided by the microscope, have one after another resolved 
themselves into instances of ordinary and normal reproduction. 
After a full history of these cases, and of the investigations to 
which they have led, Mr. Huxley in his Address before the 
British Association for the Advancement of Science, September, 
1870, comes to the conclusion that they do not any of them 
afford evidence that " the molecules of dead matter, for no valid 
or intelligible reason that is assigned, are able to arrange them- 
selves into living bodies exactly such as can be demonstrated to 
be frequently produced in another way." " But although I can- 
not express this conviction of mine too strongly," he adds, " I 
must carefully guard myself against the supposition that I in- 
tend to suggest that no such thing as abiogenesis " — the pro- 
duction of living matter by matter without life — " has ever 
taken place in the past." " If it were given me to look beyond 
the abyss of geologically recorded time, to the still more remote 
period when the earth was passing through physical and chem- 
ical conditions which it can no more see again than a man can 
recall his infancy, I should expect to be a witness of the evo- 
lution of living protoplasm from non-living matter. I should 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 103 

expect to see it appear under forms of great simplicity, endowed, 
like existing fungi, with the power of determining the formation 
of new protoplasm from such matters as ammonium carbonates, 
oxalates and tartrates, alkaline and earthy phosphates, and water 
without the aid of light." To this belief ho is led, as ho in- 
forms us, by " analogical reasoning," although he acknowledges 
he has no right to call " it anything but an act of philosophic 
faith." It is to be regretted that he does not state the facts upon 
which his analogical reasoning is based ; for after the conces- 
sions he makes, it is certainly not easy to imagine them. He 
supposes that at some unknown epoch in the past history of our 
planet, under conditions equally unknown, but presumed to be 
very unlike any now existing, a certain specific event happened 
throuo-h the action of natural causes alone, to the production of 
which the known laws of matter are wholly inadequate. He 
further admits that nothing like it has ever come within the 
range of human experience. How he founds upon analogy a 
belief so remarkable is beyond my comprehension. Could he 
point to actual and admitted instances of spontaneous genera- 
tion, or did we know that life was introduced by this method to 
any of the other planets, he might then reason by analogy to 
the mode of its introduction to our own ; but without some 
such knowledge I see no basis whatever for analogical rea- 
soning. The origin of life, except through supernatural agency, 
is still an unsolved and, as I believe, an insoluble problem. 
Among other desperate hypotheses, its importation from a for- 
eign source on the fragment of a disrupted world has been sug- 
gested. This, however, would not explain its origin, but only 
carry it farther back. 

Mr. Darwin does not attempt to solve the difficult problem. 



104 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

but, assuming the existence of a few of the simplest forms of life, 
he endeavors to show how from these under the operation of 
natural laws may have sprung the entire population of the globe. 
This is not quite satisfactory to Mr. Tyndall, who thinks little is 
gained to science by tracing the existing species of plants and 
animals back to a few primitive types, if for the origin of these 
we are obliged to have recourse to supernatural agency, the hete 
noir of his school of philosophers. We might as well, he says, 
suppose the intervention of such agency in the production of 
every new species. In making this criticism, Mr. Tyndall seems 
to overlook the important fact that Mr. Darwin's principles do 
not touch the origin of life, but relate exclusively to the modifi- 
cations which it has undergone since its first appearance on the 
earth. Atavism, the law of variation, and the selective power 
of environments, or external conditions, are the key to his system. 
Atavism moulds the offspring upon the parental type. The law 
of variation arranges minor details, so that the offspring always 
differ more or less from the parents, and also more or less from 
one another. When the peculiarities of the individual are such 
as to adapt it more perfectly to its surroundings, the posterity 
to which they are bequeathed will be perj)etuated, and a sub- 
ordinate variety or species will be established. If, on the other 
hand, the peculiarities of the individual are such as tend to un- 
fit it for its habitat, and consequently lessen its chances of suc- 
cess in the struggle for existence, the posterity to which they 
are transmitted will grow weaker with every generation, and the 
variety marked by these disadvantageous peculiarities will Anally 
die out. By this selection of the fittest, which has been going 
on under natural laws from the beginning, Mr. Darwin sup- 
poses the earth to have been provided at all periods of its exist- 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 105 

ence with appropriate inhabitants. That the causes assumed are 
real, and their tendency is in the direction indicated, must, I 
think, be admitted. But their adequacy to produce the amaz- 
ing results ascribed to them, however long in operation, there 
is great reason to doubt. It is certainly very far from having 
been proved. Although man has for many centuries availed 
himself of these laws in his efforts to produce improved varieties 
of the domesticated plants #ind animals, he has not been able 
to originate a single new species, or a variety so far removed from 
the ancestral type as to bear any of the crucial tests of species. 
Until this is done, evolution by natural selection, although a 
great advance upon any of the development theories that have 
preceded it, must be regarded merely as a working hypothesis, 
destined to work its way either into science, or, what is more 
probable, out of it, as ninety-nine out of every hundred such 
hypotheses have hitherto done. 

One of the strongest grounds of objection to Mr. Darwin's 
theory is its want of accordance with the recorded facts of 
geology. This was early pointed out by Agassiz, By the 
requirements of the theory, life on the earth must have slowly 
advanced by insensible movements from the lowest to the high- 
est types. The rocks, however, do not show this. As we rise 
through the successive strata, we do not observe one species of 
plant or animal graduating into another ; but the first species 
continues unchanged, until it by and by gives place to the next 
above it, which from the beginning is perfectly distinct and 
well marked. Intermediate varieties interposed between two 
successive species are nowhere found. Life has, to all appear- 
ance, ascended by steps, and not continuously on an inclined 
plane. In reply it is said that intermediate varieties may have 



106 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

once existed, and have afterwards been destroyed by denuding 
agencies which are known to have swept away such vast bodies 
of strata. The answer, however, is strained, and can hardly be 
deemed satisfactory by those who offer it. If there were ever 
connecting links between the fossil species, it is certainly re- 
markable that not one of them should have been preserved and 
come down to us in the existing formations. 

Should the Darwinian hypothesis ever attain to the position 
of a received doctrine, it will not, as I have already more than 
once said, do away with the necessity of intelligence for the 
adjustment of organic to inorganic nature : but only carry its 
exercise back to the ordaining of the laws under which the in- 
numerable adaptations have arisen. 

I have said that he must be a bold man who should under- 
take to show how the molecules of oxygen, hydrogen, nitrogen, 
and carbon, under no other guidance than their own affinities, 
may in the beginning have come together and united so as to 
form the living structures of plants and animals. But a much 
bolder man would be required for the task of explaining how 
the molecules of these same elements can, under any conditions, 
or in any relations, acquire the power of feeling, thought, and 
will, and thus pass by virtue of mere collocation from the domain 
of matter to the realm of mind. Neither these substances nor 
any of their known compounds have ever shown the slightest 
evidence of sensibility, although they have been subjected for a 
whole century to the tortures of the laboratory. Their action 
is determined, not by the presentation of motive, but by the 
supply of the proper physical conditions. When these are pres- 
ent it takes place, no matter what the consequence may be. 
The supposition of will and a contemplated end determining 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 107 

their action is as completely negatived by the experiments o£ 
the laboratory as their possession of sensibility. To say, in op- 
position alike to the conclusions of the chemist and the physicist, 
that the elementary molecules of matter may, for aught we 
know to the contrary, be endowed with a latent sensibility and 
will only requiring organic conditions for their manifestation, 
is to seek refuge in our ignorance, which neither facts nor anal- 
ogies justify, and which, in the circumstances, can hardly be 
regarded as honest. The phenomena of mind and matter not 
only have nothing in common, but are so unlike as to render 
comparison between them impossible. Why, then, refer them 
to the same essence ? What reason for assuming that they 
have a common substratum ? If the phenomena be so unlike, 
why should not the noumena be equally unlike ? Why not 
refer the two groups of phenomena to two distinct essences, 
differing in their nature as they differ in their manifestations ? 
Does not a true philosophy require this ? But it is said that we 
must not multiply causes unnecessarily. Matter is in the field. 
We are certain of its existence. If from its known powers we 
can account for the activities of mind, without invoking other 
aid, we are bound to do so. But do we know matter any better 
than we know mind ? Have not as many philosophers attempted 
to solve the problem of the universe on the supposition of mind 
alone as on a purely material hypothesis ? Are we not abso- 
lutely ignorant of the essence of both matter and mind ? Have 
we any other warrant for supposing their existence but the 
causal judgment ? and does not this require that the essence 
should be in the strictest relation to the manifestation of a na- 
ture exactly fitted for producing it ? When the manifestations 
are totally unlike, so as to exclude the possibility of comparison, 



108 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

is it not a violation of one of the plainest dictates of the reason 
to refer them, without evidence of the fact, to the same essence? 
The teachings of analogy are, moreover, in perfect accordance 
with the requirements of the principle of causality. The prog- 
ress of knowledge during the past century, while it has tended 
to the unification of laws, has tended equally to the multiplica- 
tion of substances. Instead of four elements, as in the time 
of Aristotle, we now reckon more than threescore. Several 
have been recently added to those previously known, by the 
spectroscope. Not limited in its explorations to our planet, this 
marvelous instrument, reaching out to the sun and stellar 
worlds, discovers in these distant orbs substances not known to 
exist on the earth. Besides the different kinds of matter 
brought to light by modern research, physicists infer the exist- 
ence of a substance incomparably rarer and more subtle than 
any known form of matter. This substance is supposed to fill, 
if not the entire void of space, that finite portion of it which 
is occupied by the material universe. It is not affected by grav- 
ity, and gives no evidence of any of the attractions by which 
ordinary matter is animated. It is so tenuous that the planets 
in their revolutions about the sun experience no appreciable re- 
sistance from it. Motion is propagated through it with the ve- 
locity of light. Many billions of its delicate pulses beat upon 
the retina of the eye every second, having proceeded from the 
sun with a rate of motion which would carry them eight times 
round the earth during the same brief period. If the physicist 
is obliged to hypothecate a substance so unlike any kind of mat- 
ter to account for the phenomena of light and heat, surely we 
may be pardoned for failing to see an adequate explanation of 
thought, feeling, and will in the reactions of phosphorus and 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 109 

the four organic elements. Why not suppose the powers o£ 
mind to inhere in a substance or essence as much more subtle 
than the ethereal medium of light and heat as that is than the 
earth under our feet? 

But, it is said, we never witness any exhibition of mental phe- 
nomena except in connection with matter. So our knowledge 
of this pulsating ether, embosoming all worlds, is gained wholly 
through matter, upon which it acts, and by which it is acted 
upon. We have no facilities for directly apprehending it, more 
than we have for directly apprehending spirit. We learn the 
existence of both in the same way, — through their material 
manifestations. 

Again, it is said, the powers of the mind are in the closest 
relationship with the brain : that when this is stimulated the 
mental activities are quickened, and when it is paralyzed they 
cease altogether ; that mere pressure upon certain parts of the 
brain is sufficient to destroy consciousness. The fact being ad- 
mitted, does it prove anything more than that, under our present 
constitution, the mind is dependent in the exercise of its powers 
upon the brain ? Do the discoveries of the modern physiologist 
do more than specialize this dependence? Do any of them 
show, or tend to show, that the brain thinks, or that thought is 
a secretion of the brain, or in any way a functional product of 
that organ ? Do they furnish any new data upon which to 
build such a theory ? Do we at the present hour know any more 
of the actual relation of the mind to its material organ than 
was known two thousand years ago ? Is not the gulf between 
molecular movements and neural tremors, on the one hand, and 
the apprehension of truth and the sense of duty, on the other, 
impossible in thought even, — as absolutely so now as it was in the 



110 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

time of Plato ? This is admitted by Mr. Tyndall in his imagined 
interview with Bishop Butler. But he attempts to offset it by 
an equal difficulty which he supposes to be connected with 
Bishop Butler's teaching. Had the bishop really been present, 
he would quickly have enlightened the savant on this point. He 
would have said, " Mr. Tyndall, I do not suppose, as you seem 
to imagine, the powers of mind to be independent, detached 
from all substance, and resting upon nothing. On the con- 
trary, I believe them to be connected with an essence incompara- 
bly more subtle than any kind of matter, — a substance compos- 
ite and organized it may be, but with parts so firmly united that 
the dissolution of the body has no effect upon it." To this re- 
ply of the bishop I do not see how the accomplished professor, 
on his own principles, could make answer. 

Although we have no evidence, it may be further said that 
the brain actually perceives and thinks, and can hardly suppose 
it, yet, after all, perception and thought may be in some way 
the products of its action. It would be interesting and instruc- 
tive to examine some of the attempts that have -been made to 
construct a material theory of the mental phenomena, and see 
with what success they have been attended ; and to no effort of 
this kind could we better turn than to the recent work of G. H. 
Lewes, on the problems of life and mind. Though as yet incom- 
plete, the volume published will well repay a perusal. Like all 
his writings, the work discloses an unrivaled power of con- 
veying with rare beauty of expression and imagery every con- 
ceivable form and shade of thought. It is from such a pen, if 
from any, that we should expect an intelligible explanation of 
the dynamics of the brain in the evolution of the mental pro- 
cesses. In attempting this explanation Mr. Lewes does not con- 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. HI 

fine himself to ascertained facts, but, with unlimited draft upon 
the imagination, he endeavors to show how we may suppose 
thought to emerge from its organic conditions in the brain and 
nervous system. He tells us of psychoplasm, and neural units, 
and serial changes, and residua of experiences, individual and 
ancestral. " Psychoplasm is the sentient material out of which 
all the forms of consciousness are evolved." " Psychoplasmic 
tremors are the raw materials of consciousness." " The move- 
ments of psychoplasm constitute sensibility." " The psychical 
organism is evolved from psychoplasm." " The soul derives its 
structure and powers from psychoplasm." " Psychoplasm is 
the mass of potential feeling derived from all the sensative affec- 
tions of the organism, not only of the individual, but, through 
heredity, of the ancestral organisms." " A neural unit is a 
tremor. Several units are grouped into a higher unity, or neu- 
ral process, which is a fusion of tremors, as a sound is a fusion 
of aerial pulses ; and each process may in turn be grouped with 
others, and thus from this grouping of groups all the varieties 
emerge. What on the physiological side is simply a neural 
process, on the psychological side is a sentient process. We 
may liken sentience to combustion, and then the neural units 
will stand for the oscillating molecules." A neural tremor and 
sensibility are only different phases of the same thing. It may 
be compared to a curve with a convex and a concave side, one 
seen from without and the other from within. " Sensibility 
may be said to rest upon seriated change." " If the changes 
were simply movements, physical or chemical, they would not 
present the phenomena of consciousness." " They must be 
serial and convergent through a consensus determined by essen- 
tial community of structure." " Experience is the registration 



112 THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 

of feeling." " Experience is the organic registration of assimi- 
lated material." " The accumulated experiences of ancestors, 
as well as the accumulated experiences of the individual, leave 
residua in modifications of structure." The great problem of 
psychology is to develop all psychical phenomena from one 
fundamental process in one vital tissue. The tissue is the ner- 
vous ; the process is a grouping of neural units in tremors. 

Such is the foundation upon which Mr. Lewes aspires to build 
a new system of mental philosophy. Never did one labor at a 
more hopeless task. It is sorrowful to witness the efforts of so 
gifted a mind put forth in the vain endeavor to render that 
which is untranslatable, to explain that which is inconceivable, 
to illustrate that which is unthinkable. 

I have endeavored to signalize some of the difficulties which 
lie in the path of the materialist. 

According to the most advanced teachings of science, the 
primary constituents of matter are not mere atoms, as hereto- 
fore supposed, whose existence demands no explanation, but 
elaborately organized structures, miniature systems of worlds, 
as much to be accounted for as the larger systems built from 
them. 

The universe is not eternal, either actually or potentially. It 
has had a beginning, and unless sustained by a power without 
itself it will have an end. The forces by which the existing 
order of things is maintained are being constantly expended, 
and must finally be lost for cosmic purposes by diffusion 
through space. Many such universes may have come into ex- 
istence, run their courses, and passed away, and yet hardly 
have touched the resources of a past eternity. 

Under the materialistic hypothesis life is assumed to have 



THE MATERIALISTIC FORM OF DEVELOPMENT. 113 

commenced in our world by the spontaneous generation of 
plants and animals, not a single instance of which has ever 
come within the range of human experience. Mr. Huxley, 
though freely admitting that none of the supposed cases of this 
sort will bear the tests of a rigorous examination, thinks that 
such an event may have occurred at an early period of the 
earth's history, when things were in a formative state. He 
frankly says, however, that his belief is an act of philosophic 
faith for which he can assign no sufficient reason. The higher 
orders of plants and animals are claimed, under this hypothesis, 
to have been developed from the lower through the operation of 
natural causes ; and yet not a single new species has been pro- 
duced within the period of reliable observation, although the 
tendency of nature has been seconded by the efforts of man 
continued through many centuries. 

All the phenomena of mind are in like manner assumed to 
be evolved by a material organism out of material reactions. 
So far from this assumption resting on any solid basis of ob- 
served facts, it is seen on examination to involve what is impos- 
sible in thought, — the transmutation of mere neural tremors 
into sensibility, intelligence, and will. Between the materialis- 
tic form of the development hypothesis, thus embarrassed with 
difficulties on every side, and the belief in an intelligent Author 
of nature, to which all its arrangements point, our choice lies. 
Need we be long in making it ? 
8 



OF SOME OF THE DIFFICULTIES WITH WHICH 
THEISM IS PRESSED. 



LECTURE III. 

I SPOKE in my last lecture of the embarrassments of logical 
and consistent materialism. But is theism, it may be asked, 
free from embarrassments ? Although not meeting difficulties of 
the same kind as those encountered by materialism, are there 
not others equally great lying in its path ? Do we not see in 
the world around us much that is irreconcilable with the idea 
of a benevolent, wise, and all-powerful Creator ? How shall we 
explain, on such a theory, the origin and continuance of phys- 
ical and of moral evil, which cast their dark shadows to so ap- 
palling an extent over human society ? How account for so 
much of accident, and disorder, and failure in the attainment of 
proposed ends, and perversion of faculties from their intended 
uses, and, finally, for the very imperfect accomplishment of any 
conceivable object of the creation ? Before proceeding to a spe- 
cial examination of these difficulties, I wish to premise one or 
two general truths which it is important to bear in mind while 
considering them. 

The teleologist, when he surveys the outward world, in the 
same way as when he examines a creation of man, sees means, 
ends, and incidents. All things and events come under one of 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 115 

these categories, and not a few have a place at the same time 
under two of them. The ends alone reveal the will and char- 
acter of God. The means are simply devices for the attain- 
ment of the end. The incidents are collateral, and flow from 
other properties associated with the available one in the means. 
The mistaking of incidents for ends has given rise to much 
bad theology, and the failure to distinguish clearly between in- 
cidents and ends to not a little loose theology. Teleology de- 
pends upon this distinction. Ignore it, and the science becomes 
impossible. Teleological deductions are reliable in proportion 
as this distinction is recognized and kept steadily in view. 

What are ends considered in reference to one group of con- 
trivances may hold this place in another group of means to 
higher ends, and these higher ends may in their turn become 
means to yet higher, and the series may continue to advance 
indefinitely. The heart and arteries are means to the circula- 
tion of the blood. The circulation of the blood is a means to 
the proper nutrition of the various tissues ; and the proper nutri- 
tion of the tissues is a means to health and vigor ; and, finally, 
health and vigor are means to the well-being of the individual. 
GraAaty is the agency employed for putting the winds in mo- 
tion. The winds are the bearers of the clouds. The clouds 
water the earth. The earth ministers sustenance to plants, and 
plants provide food for animals. It is the ultimate sum of the 
series, the last and highest end, that discloses most fully the 
character of the Author. 

In the works of nature as well as in human devices, in the 
works of God as well as of man, obstacles of an incidental char- 
acter may stand in the way of the ends sought. If their 
obstructive tendency be but inconsiderable, they may be allowed 



116 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

to remain, and impair to that extent the perfectness of the 
result. If the obstruction opposed by them be more serious, 
fitting instrumentalities are provided for their more or less 
complete removal. 

THE DOCTRINE OF THE INCIDENTAL. 

Every species of matter, so far as it is known to us, consists 
of a group of properties united to one another by indissoluble 
ties. Whenever we desire to avail ourselves of one of these 
properties for any purpose, we are obliged to take the other 
properties along with it. These associated properties, carrying 
into the device activities of their own, always interfere to a 
greater or less extent with the object in view. If the interfer- 
ence is slight, we allow it to continue ; if of a more serious 
character, we employ such means as may be at our command 
for controlling it. 

Thus friction, from the very constitution of matter, is insep- 
arable from the working of all machinery. We may reduce it 
by polished surfaces and lubricating fluids ; but we cannot en- 
tirely remove it. Enough still remains, not only to absorb a 
very considerable portion of the transmitted force, but in the 
end to destroy the machinery itself. This friction emerges 
directly from the cohesion which confers upon the machinery, 
while it lasts, its solidity and strength. In other relations, fric- 
tion becomes an important means to ends. We provide for it 
in hard and roua;hened surfaces. Without friction locomotion 
would be impossible. The air would oppose no resistance to the 
wing of the bird ; the earth would offer no reaction to the 
foot of man or of beast ; the wheel of the locomotive would 
whirl idly upon the rail. 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 117 

All the other prunary forces of matter are equally ready with 
cohesion to lend us their friendly assistance in the accomplish- 
ment of our purposes, and not less ready in different relations 
to aid in defeating- those purposes. Gravity finally pulls down 
the columns and temples to which for ages it has imparted sta- 
bility. Chemical affinity takes to pieces the beautiful struc- 
tures, organic and mineral, which it has assisted in building. 
Vishnu and Siva are only different appearances of the same 
god. 

If we examine any of the most successful of human inven- 
tions, we shall perceive them to be full of defects and limita- 
tions, arisino' from the source here indicated. Take the steam- 
engine, for example. Throughout its entire structure, from the 
ash pit to the walking-beam, we find it looking to a single end, 
— the generation of force. Every part is so formed, and of 
such material, as to fit it most perfectly for its use. The bars 
of the grate are of iron, and are made thin and deep. The 
walls of the furnace are built of bricks, as nearly fire-proof as 
possible. The boiler is constructed of heavy and thoroughly 
wrought sheets of the strongest known metal. Every part is 
made to last. Guards are, moreover, set at all points where 
danger of accident is apprehended. The builder has omitted 
nothino: which could tend to insure its safe and continuous 
working. 

And yet the bars of the grate melt or burn out. The walls 
of the furnace crumble away. The boiler leaks, or, becoming 
weak, explodes, and spreads destruction on every side ; or, if 
such a catastrophe do not occur, the engine gradually wears out, 
and at lenoth falls into a mass of ruins. 

o 

But was any one of these accidents or events intended to 



118 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

happen ? Were these provisions in the structure of the engine 
looking to it as an end ? Was it a part of the design of the 
builder ? Or was it not rather incident to the nature of the 
materials in which the design was embodied ? — materials, too, 
selected with the most careful regard to uses which they were 
to subserve. Would it be just to the builder of the engine to 
say he meant that the boiler should explode, that the walls of 
the furnace should crumble, that the bars of the grate should 
burn out ? — that he made special provision for all this in the 
construction of the engine ? Surely there can be but one an- 
swer to this question. 

In all human contrivances, that which tasks the inventive 
faculty most severely is not the origination of the design, but 
the overcoming of the difficulties met with in its practical em- 
bodiment. The former is often the work of but a single mo- 
ment. The latter may require the labor of years. Finally, in- 
cidents obstructive to the object of the device from which they 
immediately flow, instead of being controlled by further devices, 
may, through the complex relations of things, be made subser- 
vient to other and higher ends, provided for by a more extended 
circle of agencies. This obtains very widely in both the natural 
and the moral worlds. It is the divine method of bringing 
good out of evil. 

Permit me to illustrate by example the three different cases 
enumerated. Take first an instance of the imperfect attainment 
of the end sought through causes incidentally connected with 
the means employed for reaching it. I have referred to the 
machinery of vapor, wind, and cloud, by which water is lifted 
from the ocean and borne over the continents, to be distilled 
in gentle rain upon mountain and valley, upon field, meadow, 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 119 

and forest. No one can doubt that the object of the beautiful 
contrivance is the fertilization of the earth. And yet is this 
object fully accomplished? Does rain always fall where and 
when it is needed ? Is not a large part of the water thus lifted 
from the ocean returned again to its bosom, without ever 
reaching the continents ? Do not droughts occur in all lands ? 
On the two largest of the continents are there not vast deserts, 
where rain never falls, — limitless regions of perpetual barren- 
ness ? Can any one doubt that these droughts and deserts are 
incidents of the plan adopted for watering the earth, — that 
they are immediately dependent upon the physical conforma- 
tions of its surface, which conformations were evolved under 
wide and far-reaching laws ? Doe^ any one suppose that they 
were specially provided for, and are in themselves ends ? Could 
we, by opening a channel between the Atlantic Ocean and the 
interior of the African desert, convert that vast Sahara into a 
garden, should we be deterred from doing so by the fear that 
we might be thwarting the divine purposes ? AVas irrigation 
ever objected to by any intelligent man on such a ground ? 
Again : gravitation is a fundamental law of matter. Its reign 
is as wide as the universe. It is the principle of stability 
throughout nature. On the earth, it is the preserver of order. 
It gives fixedness of position to bodies. By restraining loco- 
motion it enables us to direct and control it. It underlies all 
other provisions for our happiness, and in ordinary circum- 
stances ministers constantly to our safety and well-being. Can 
any one doubt the beneficent purpose of its ordination ? And 
yet, in certain emergencies which are liable to arise, it becomes 
a destroying agent. It seizes upon the incautious or too ven- 
turesome traveler, and drags him over the precipice, to be 



120 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

clashed to pieces at the bottom. It hurls the avalanche down 
the side of the mountain upon little villages sleeping at its foot. 
It gives direction to the molten rock as it issues from the mouth 
of the volcano, and hurries the fiery torrent on its wrathful way 
towards the devoted city. In the midst of darkness and tem- 
pest it whelms the noble ship, and carries the vessel down with 
its living freight to the depths of ocean. Does any one believe 
these events were among the ends contemplated in the institu- 
tion of the law of gravitation, or that the circumstances were 
specially arranged for bringing them about ? Could the danger 
have been foreseen in any of the cases supposed, who would 
have hesitated, from such an idea, to do all in his power to avert 
the calamity ? I do not ask whether these events were foreseen 
by God, or whether the constitution of things to which they 
were foreseen to be incidental justified itself to the divine wis- 
dom, and was adopted as the best constitution, but whether the 
foreseeing of these events weighed in favor of its adoption, or, 
to vary slightly the language of the question, whether the con- 
stitution chosen embodied provisions looking specially to these 
events, and such embodiment was one of the grounds of the 
divine choice. Now, I hold that no man in his sober senses 
can o» dare answer the question in the affirmative. 

To prevent any possible misunderstanding, I desire to say, be- 
fore proceeding further, that the questions which we are now 
considering are all teleological. They have no relation whatever 
to God's providence. The providential question is of an entirely 
different character, and depends upon different evidence. It is 
a question of God's procedure after having established a consti- 
tution of things. It is whether He does not, in goodness, see fit 
to interpose in behalf of His creatures, and ward off evils which 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 121 

would otherwise befall them under that constitution, or confer, 
it may be, special blessings. This question comes under an en- 
tirely different category, and will be included in the subject of 
my next lecture. 

Numerous examples of preventive and remedial provisions are 
found in the human organization. Such provisions, in fact, 
make up no inconsiderable portion of it. They attest, in the 
strongest manner possible, the reality of the distinction between 
incident and end, not kept sufficiently in view, as I think, by 
most theologians, and wholly ignored by the disciples of the 
Darwinian and Positive schools of philosophy. My first illus- 
tration shall be from the eye. The front part of the outer coat 
or envelope of this organ is transparent, as every one knows, for 
the admission of light. It retains its transparency, however, 
only so long as it continues moist. The opaqueness which gath- 
ers upon the eye so soon after death is owing simply to the 
drying of its surface. During life the same thing would hap- 
pen, were there no provision against it. To prevent an occur- 
rence that would prove fatal to vision, a small gland is placed 
just within the outer angle of the orbit, having for its office the 
secretion of tears. These, constantly oozing out upon the in- 
side of the upper lid, are conveyed by its rapid passes over the 
eye to all the exposed parts of its surface. Fresh quantities of 
moisture are in this way continually pouring into the eye, to 
supply the place of that which is lost by evaporation. Thus we 
see that the volatility of the tears, which belongs to them as 
much as their lubricating and clarifying properties, and which, 
were there no protection for averting the end, would wholly de- 
feat the purpose of the eye, is met and rendered harmless by the 
introduction of an additional organ specially assigned to that 
office. 



122 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

Nor does the provision for securing the eye against the effects 
of evaporation stop here. If the tears which are continually 
flowing in upon the organ were suffered to dry away upon* its 
surface, there would soon be an accumulation of residual matter, 
consisting of various animal and saline substances. This gradu- 
ally thickening, and becoming charged with particles of dust, of 
which the air always contains a greater or less quantity, would 
presently induce inflammation in the organ, and in the end de- 
stroy it. As a protection against this evil, there is provided 
a large excess of the lachrymal fluid over and above what is 
needed to supply the evaporation ; enough, in fact, to wash the 
eye and preserve it free from every impurity. But then this ex- 
cess of fluid must be disposed of. If allowed to accumulate in 
the eye until it should flow over the lid, besides the inconven- 
ience of a constant trickling down the cheek, it would in time 
occasion disease in the organ itself, as is shown from experience. 
To meet this new difficulty, a still further contrivance is resorted 
to. A very delicate tube is inserted just at the inner angle of 
the eye, terminating above by a bifurcation in the edges of the 
upper and lower lids, and below in the adjacent passage of the 
nose. The tears, as fast as they accumulate, are taken up by 
this tube and conveyed to the nose, where, spread over a large 
surface, they quickly evaporate, and pass off with the other ex- 
halations attendant on respiration. So complex is the lachrymal 
apparatus appended to the eye for the express purpose of meet- 
ing liabilities incidentally conijected with its structure and use. 

Can any one who believes in an intelligent Author of nature 
suppose for a moment the drying of the cornea and the thick- 
ening of the tears by evaporation, to be ends contemplated in 
the formation of the eye ? the object of contrivance, as much 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 123 

SO as the means devised for preventing the evils that would arise 
from them ? to be as much provided for, and as truly included 
in, the design and purpose of the organ, as vision ? Such an 
idea could surely not be entertained except by those who reject 
the doctrine of final causes, and refuse to see indications of 
mind in nature. 

Take another example. The frail and delicate materials of 
which our bodies are formed render them liable to injuries of 
various kinds, while their complex structure exposes them to 
disorders almost without number. Muscles may be cut. Lig- 
aments may be torn. Bones may be broken. Limbs may be 
severed. Teeth decay. The lungs inflame. The heart en- 
larges, or its valves ossify. The stomach is disordered. The 
secretions of the liver become obstructed. These, and ten thou- 
sand other accidents and disorders, are incident to our constitu- 
tion and the circumstances in which we are placed. We cannot, 
however, on this account, suppose them to enter in any way into 
the purpose intended to be accomplished in our creation, — to 
have been specially provided for in our organization, and sought 
as ends. Such an idea is wholly irreconcilable with the reme- 
dial provisions which we find incorporated in the structure not 
only of man, but of all the lower animals, — provisions for the 
reparation of injuries, and the reproduction even of those parts 
which have been lost by accident or disease. These evils grow 
out of the nature of the substances of which organized beings 
are composed, and from which they derive all their powers. 
Matter continuing what it is, the beings formed of it must be 
liable to injury ; and in proportion as their organizations are 
complex and the circumstances of their existence variable, they 
must be liable to disorder. Among the lowest races we find 



124 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

animals with structures so simple, and living under conditions 
so uniform, that they are scarcely more liable to disease than 
the elements of which they are formed. As their faculties are 
proportionally limited, they have little power of avoiding dan- 
ger, and are consequently peculiarly exposed to mutilation and 
injury. As a compensation for this, they are endowed (the 
simplicity of their structures admitting it) with the most aston- 
ishing powers of recovery, entire limbs, and in some instances 
the eyes even, being reproduced in a short time after they have 
been lost. As we rise in the scale of organized life, we meet 
with animals of a more complex structure, possessing a wider 
range of faculties, and having greater powers of avoiding the 
dangers to which they are exposed. These suffer less frequently 
in the integrity of their parts. Their power of repairing inju- 
ries and supplying losses is also less remarkable. At the same 
time they are more liable to disease, on account of the greater 
number and delicacy of the relations subsisting between their 
several parts; and the vis medicatrix naturce is stronger in 
them, owing, it is probable, to the same cause. This type of 
character is most strongly exemplified in man, who stands at the 
head of the animal creation, and who, besides combining in his 
structure a greater number and variety of parts than any other 
animal, is also endowed with intellectual and moral faculties, 
which add still further to the elaborateness of his constitution. 
His life is also more varied, and takes in a far wider range of 
both character and circumstances than that of any other animal. 
We accordingly find him mora liable to disease, oftener suffering 
from organic and functional derangement. At the same time 
his system, including within it a greater number of checks and 
balances, possesses greater recuperative powers ; so that disor- 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 125 

ders, though more various and more frequent, do not so gen- 
erally prove fatal with him as with the lower animals. 

Could there be stronger proof of the incidental character of 
the physical evils complained of than is thus afforded ? If in 
themselves intended, or if the result of want of thought or 
care, whence the preventive and remedial devices so numerous 
and striking not only in man, but in all living beings ? Indeed 
it may be doubted whether more of the contrivances embodied 
in the animal organs are for rendering the available properties 
of matter tributary to their varied functions, or for holding in 
restraint other accompanying properties which tend to impede 
and obstruct those functions. So difficult was the problem of 
rearing for the earth out of its own dust fitting inhabitants ! 
If the practical solution reached is not unattended with evils, 
the provisions made in so many cases for checking or remedy- 
ing these evils are sufficient to vindicate the divine goodness 
from aspersion on that account. If there is limitation, of which 
I see no proof, it must be limitation in power.* 

1 There are other difficulties encountered by the Christian theist, which, if we 
adopt the modern theory of evolution, the doctrine of the incidental assists us in 
clearing away. I refer to the origin of the innumerable parasites which infest the 
bodies of animals both internally and externally, and of the hosts of destructive 
insects which prejf- upon the fruits of the earth and bring to naught so often the 
labors of man. It is hardly compatible with any idea we can form of God to im- 
agine Him occupied with the formation of many of these beings. Mr. Kirby, 
author of one of the Bridgewater treatises, supposes them to have been created after 
the fall of man, and to be among the instrumentalities devised for his punishment. 
Such a notion, however, in the present state of our geological knowledge, is scarcely 
tenable. But if we suppose the varied forms of life on our globe, instead of being di- 
rectly created, to have been evolved under organic and physical laws so adjusted as 
to provide for the earth at each successive stage in its history ajipropriate inhabi- 
tants, we may then conceive a multitude of beings, which we can hardly imagine God 
to take pleasure in forming, to have been wrapped up iu the folds of these compre- 



126 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

But I have not yet done with the doctrine of the incidental. 
If I mistake not, it is the key to most of the difficulties with 
which theism is supposed to be embarrassed. It is in this doc- 
trine that moral evil, as well as physical, so far as the problem 
comes within the grasp of the human understanding, finds its 
true explanation. The liability to injury and disease insepara- 
bly connected with man's physical organization has its parallel 
in the liability to do wrong inseparably connected with his con- 
stitution as a moral agent. This will, I think, appear, if we 
consider the elements which enter into that constitution. 

There is first the personality or will, free and in equipoise. 
Around this, and acting upon it as motive powers, are the affec- 
tions, the appetites, and the passions. To these may be added 
the reason, or self-love, and the conscience, which, enlightened 
by the intelligence, may act either as impelling or as guiding and 
restraining forces. The affections, appetites, and passions, when 
quickened into activity by the presence, either real or imagined, 
of their appropriate objects, awaken desire and prompt to action. 
The same is true of the reason and conscience considered as im- 
pelling forces. To insure right conduct, these several principles 
of action must be properly adjusted to one another, and also 
to the circumstances in which the being is placed. So long as 
the required adjustments, internal and external, continue undis- 
turbed, — that is, so long as the nature and the environments, 
the two factors entering into motion, remain without change, — 
such a being would be incapable of a wrong action. He would 

hensive laws, however wisely and beneficently ordained. The waste of destructive 
insects and the annoyance of bodily pests, like disease and accident, are only inci- 
dents, and not ends, in the divine plan. The further back we suppose evolution 
under law to be carried, the more room is opened for collateral effects not in them- 
selves intended, and the greater becomes the explanatory power of the principle 
which it is the object of the lecture to set forth. 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 127 

be a perfect moral machine. He would, however, be only a ma- 
chine. He would have no self -regulating power ; nor could he 
need any. His action would be as certain, and, with the requisite 
knowledge of the two factors of the motive or motives prompt- 
ing it, might be as certainly predicted, as that of any other 
machine. 

But such are not the conditions of man's being. He is him- 
self not only liable to change, but is continually changing, 
through the influence of habit. Every act either strengthens 
an old habit or tends to form a new one. It is upon this power 
of forming habits that his capacity for growth depends. With- 
out it he would be incapable of progress, either individually or 
as a race. His environments are no more fixed than his char- 
acter. They, too, are continually changing. Hence, however 
perfectly we may suppose the active principles in man's consti- 
tution to be adjusted, without the addition of a self-regulating 
power such nicety of adjustment could not long continue. By 
change of character or change of circumstances, or of both, the 
balance of forces would quickly be deranged, and when derange- 
ment had once taken place it would tend constantly to increase, 
until at length the machine would become so disordered as no 
longer to answer the ends. To remedy as far as possible this 
defect, and also to convert the machine into a responsible agent, 
the power of choice is added. By virtue of this endowment 
he may select from among the courses of action offering them- 
selves. He may choose that which seems to be the highest and 
most worthy, although urged by a stronger impulse towards one 
lower and less worthy. He may adhere steadfastly to the right, 
however tempted by interest to swerve from it. He may obey 
the dictates of reason and conscience in opposition to the clam- 



128 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

ors of appetite and passion. By the right exercise of this power 
of choice and by correspondent courses of action he may grad- 
ually change his whole character, and bring it into harmony at 
the same time with the ends of his being and with the circum- 
stances in which he is placed, whatever those circumstances may 
be : and the responsibility of doing this is laid upon him by the 
Creator. The power conferred is the ground of the obligation. 
In a similar way he may fit himself for special spheres of life 
and action, however much he may have lacked by nature the 
requisite qualifications. The power of choice, together with the 
gradual change of character through its continual exercise, opens 
to man all moral possibilities, — possibilities of evil as well as of 
good. Both are dependent upon the same constitution, and so 
far as we can see are inseparable from it. Nay, more than this, 
the evil is incident to the very features of that constitution 
which render the good possible. It grows immediately out of 
the provisions for the good, — out of endowments which lie at 
the foundation of man's capacity for improvement, which give 
to his being its chief dignity and worth, which open to hirti all 
his highest sources of happiness, which constitute by far the 
most important distinction between him and the lower orders of 
the animal creation. The very idea of an accountable being in- 
volves the power of choice, and without that of growth exist- 
ence to a finite intelligence would before long lose its zest. 

That moral evil appeared and continues in the world as an 
incident, and not by special design, might be inferred, even if 
the fact were not so apparent on looking at its source, from the 
restraint imposed on it by natural as well as human laws. Still 
further proof that it was not purposed nor desired is found in the 
costly provision made for remedying it. This to the believer in 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 129 

Christianity must alone be a sufficient answer to any charge 
preferred against the divine goodness on account of a consti- 
tution of things permitting it ; while its manifestly incidental 
character, as well as the checks and hindrances naturally op- 
posed to it, should forever silence the cavils of those who do not 
accept the teachings of our holy religion. 

But, after all, it may be said that the great extent to which 
moral and physical evil has always prevailed in the world 
argues limitation in either the divine goodness or the divine 
power ; or in the less reverent but more forcible language some- 
times used, " Either God could n't make a better world or He 
would n't." Let us look a little more closely at this short-hand 
logic, and see whether the supposed dilemma in the sense im- 
plied is really forced upon us ; whether the facts in the case 
afford evidence of limitation in any of the attributes of Deity. 

In the first place, I think it will be admitted that inability to 
do that which in the nature of things is impossible implies in 
no proper sense limitation of power. That God cannot make 
Himself, or the universe created by Him, or any part of that uni- 
verse, — never to have been; that He cannot make right wrong, 
or wrong right, good evil, or evil good ; that he cannot alter ax- 
iomatic truths, and cause the whole to be less than the sum of 
its parts, or a straight Hne to be other than the shortest distance 
between two points ; or two and two to be more or less than 
four, does not touch the question of His power. It has no re- 
lation whatever to any intelligent or intelligible conception of 
the divine omnipotence. 

In the second place, the inability to reconcile incompatibles 
and cause them to coexist does not arise from lack of power. 
Neither does it in any way imply or suggest lack of power. 



130 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

That God cannot make a thing to be and not to be at the same 
time ; that He cannot make a body at the same time both round 
and square, both rough and smooth, both hard and soft, both 
Hght and heavy, or both at rest and in motion, or do a hundred 
other things including hke incompatibles, is in no way deroga- 
tory to the divine nature. The reconcilement of the essentially 
irreconcilable comes no more within the compass of infinite 
than of finite power. 

When revising our opinions and beliefs, to be sure that they 
are well founded, are we more startled at the discovery of 
incompatibles, not so glaring, indeed, as those instanced, but as 
real, which may have lain in the mind side by side for years, or 
perhaps a lifetime, without our having noticed them ? Is it not 
one of the chief ends of logic to bring our ideas into consist- 
ency with one another by the elimination of incompatibles which 
enter, I am persuaded, far more largely into our ordinary trains 
of thought than most persons are aware ? Now, when the sub- 
ject upon which we speculate is so large and embraces so much 
of detail as the universe, would it be strange if any imagined 
improvement of ours on the existing constitution of things, any 
modification of that constitution with a view to lessening the 
evils springing incidentally from it, — would it be strange, I say, 
if such imagined improvement should include incompatibles 
without our perceiving them ? Would it be strange if, in carry- 
ing out the imagined improvement, practical difficulties should 
be met with which would quite defeat the end proposed ? — that 
instead of diminishing the e\dl, the change should increase it 
at the expense of the good? Would it be strange if, with the 
ability to look through the universe and comprehend it in all its 
parts and conditions, we should discover innate difficulties in the 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 131 

way of any imagined or imaginable improvements beyond the 
power of omnipotence to remove ? The remarks of Bishop 
Butler on this point are so apposite and just that I gladly avail 
myself of them. Notwithstanding the great advance that has 
been made since his day in knowledge of the physical world, 
they are as true and weighty now as they were then. 

Suppose, then, a person boldly to assert that the constitution of na- 
ture remaining as it is, the things complained of, the origin and con- 
tinuance of evil, might easily have been preTented by repeated interpo- 
sitions , — interpositions so graduated and circumstanced as would pre- 
clude all mischief arising from them ; or if this were impracticable, 
that a scheme of government is itself an imperfection, since more 
good might have been produced without any scheme, system, or consti- 
tution at all, by continued single unrelated acts of distributive justice 
and goodness, because these would have occasioned no irregularities ; 
and further than this it is presumed the objections will not be car- 
ried. . . . Were these assertions true, yet the government of the world 
might be just and good notwithstanding ; for, at most, they would infer 
nothing more than that it might have been better. But, indeed, they 
are mere arbitrary assertions ; no man being sufficiently acquainted 
with the possibilities of things to bring any proof of them to the lowest 
degree of probability. For, however possible what is asserted may 
seem, yet there are many instances, in things much less out of reach, of 
suppositions absolutely impossible and reducible to the most palpable 
self-contradictions, which not every one by any means could perceive 
to be such, nor, perhaps, any one at first sight suspect. From these 
things it is easy to see distinctly how our ignorance, as it is the com- 
mon, is really a satisfactory answer to all objections against the justice 
and goodness of Providence. . . . There would, indeed, be reason to 
wish — which, by the way, is very different from their right to claim 
— that all irregularities were prevented or remedied by present inter- 
positions, if these interpositions would have no other effect than this. 



132 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

But it is plain they would have some visible and immediate bad effects. 
For instance, they would encourage idleness and negligence, and they 
would render doubtful the natural rule of life, which is ascertained by 
this very thing, that the course of the world is carried on by general 
laws. . . . Upon the whole, then, we see wise reasons why the course of 
the world should be carried on by general laws, and good ends accom- 
plished by this means ; and, for aught we know, there may be the wis- 
est and best reasons for it and the best ends accomplished by it. We 
have no ground to believe that all irregularities could be remedied as 
they arise, or could have J)een precluded by general laws. We find 
that interpositions would produce evil and prevent good ; and, for 
aught we know, they would produce greater evil than they would pre- 
vent, and prevent greater good than they would produce. 

I will only add to these acute remarks of Bishop Butler that 
the government of the world by general laws, out of which the 
good and the evil alike spring, — the good directly, and the evil 
indirectly, — may have relation not solely to the ends in view, 
but also to the divine nature. One mode of government may 
be more in consonance with that nature than the other. I sug- 
gest this merely as a thing possible. I see nothing tending 
either to prove or to disprove it. The fact that God has chosen 
one method rather than the other is equally well accounted for 
by supposing it more congenial to His own nature, or better fit- 
ted to secure the ends sought. It is not improbable that both 
considerations had part in determining the choice. 

But if so much of evil is necessarily incident to existence 
under conditions the most favorable that could be devised, 
does not the fact bring into question the wisdom and benevo- 
lence of creation ? Would it not be better if the world had 
never been made ? Such seems to be the opinion of John 
Stuart Mill. In an essay on theism, the last considerable work 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 133 

•which he completed, and given to the public since his death, 
after admitting that the indications of design in nature afford 
some slight probability of an Intelligent Author, he proceeds 
to say : — 

If the motive of the Deity for creating sentient beings was the 
happiness of the beings He created, his purpose, in our corner of the 
universe at least, must be pronounced, taking past ages and all coun- 
tries and races into account, to have been thus far an ignominious fail- 
ure ; and if God had no purpose but our happiness and that of other 
living creatures, it is not credible that He would have called them into 
existence with the prospect of being so completely baffled. If man had 
not the j)Ower, by the exercise of his own energies, for the improvement 
both of himself and of his outward circumstances, to do for himself 
and other creatures vastly more than God had in the first instance 
done, the Being who called him into existence would deserve something 
veiy different from thanks at his hands. 

It is not a little remarkable that a man so acute as Mr. Mill 
should take for granted that to an omnipotent Being there can 
be neither impossibilities nor incompatibilities ; that everything 
proceeding from such a Being must be in exact accordance with 
His will and an immediate expression of that will. This as- 
sumption runs through the entire argument of the essay, and 
determines beforehand its conclusions. In the close of his chap- 
ter on the divine attributes he says : — 

These, then, are the net results of natural theology. A Being of 
great but limited power, how or by what limited we cannot conjecture ; 
of great and perhaps unlimited intelligence, but perhaps, also, more 
narrowly limited than his power ; who desires and pays some attention 
to the happiness of His creatures, but who seems to have other motives 
of action which He cares more for, and who can hardly be supposed to 
have created the universe for that purpose alone, — such is the Deity 



134: DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

whom natural religion points to, and any idea of God more captivating 
than this comes only from human wishes or from the teaching of real 
or imaginary revelation. 

But to return to our question : If existence be necessarily 
attended by so many liabilities to suffering, should it not be 
regarded as in itself an evil, and should not escape from it, as 
taught by the Buddhists, be sought as the highest good ? 

I do not think a fair survey of life, mixed as are its condi- 
tions, tends to such a conclusion. Notwithstanding the consid- 
erable amount of evil, there is a large overplus of good with 
man as well as with the animal tribes below him; happiness 
is the perpetual sunshine of existence, while suffering is the 
occasional and passing cloud. The love of life, so strong in 
everything that breathes, is the love of its continued flow of 
enjoyments, and attests in the strongest manner possible their 
reality and sweetness. The words of Tennyson are as full of 
truth as they are of poetical feeling : — 

" Whatever crazy sorrow saith, 
No life that breathes with human breath 
Has ever truly longed for death. 

*' 'T is life, whereof our nerves are scant, 
Hfe, not death, for which we pant ; 
More life, and fuller, that I want." 

There is the same preponderance of good over evil in the 
moral world as in the natural. In every well-conditioned com- 
munity, although vice may exist, there is a large excess of the 
virtues. Instances of chicanery, fraud, and evil doing may oc- 
cur, but they are exceptional ; while justice, integrity, and fair 
dealing are the rule. Crime by its comparative rareness as well 
as by its enormity makes an impression upon the imagination 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 135 

quite disproportioned to its actual place in society. The virtues 
escape our notice from their commonness. The benevolent and 
social affections as well as the social charities of home are every- 
where. We meet with a hundred kindnesses where we receive 
one injury. Such is the experience of the traveler in all lands, 
civilized and savage ; under all faiths, Christian, Mahometan, 
and pagan. Man is not the degraded being we are apt to 
suppose him. To no work of the Creator is injustice so often 
done as to human nature ; and the most remarkable thing is 
that God is supposed to be honored, instead of being profaned, 
by its depreciation. Were man in reality what he is some- 
times represented, and were the world such as it is not unfre- 
quently pictured, they might well be a cause for repentance on 
the part of Him who made them. 

Permit me in conclusion to refer briefly to the last case men- 
tioned, that of incidental evils, after reduction as far as possible 
by preventive and remedial agencies, being made subservient to 
ends outside of the special provisions from which they spring. 
Instances of this are very numerous, and especially illustrate the 
wise and beneficent ordering of Providence. Indeed, there is no 
species of physical evil that may not, and if allowed to have 
its proper and intended effect does not, become either to the 
sufferer himself, or to others, or to both himself and others, a 
source of moral benefit. Misfortunes, disappointments, trials, 
sickness, and sorrow, — these are the discipliners of humanity. 
Out of the midst of them are reared the noblest virtues. It is 
their prevalence, mingled with moral evil and to a greater or 
less extent caused by it, that makes the world so fit a theatre 
for man's probation. Without them it might be a scene of in- 
nocent enjoyment, but it would be no place for building up 



136 DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 

lofty and heroic character. Even death, the king of terrors, con- 
sidered with reference to this world only, is not an unmixed evil. 
It is the great equalizer of the diversities of human fortune. It 
at the same time reconciles the poor man to his poverty, and 
makes the rich feel of how little value is his wealth. It chastens 
aspiration, moderates desire, subdues selfishness, quickens benev- 
olence, strengthens duty, and disposes to the exercise of every 
Christian virtue. It is the moral ballast of society. But for its 
restraining and steadying effect, the noblest human institutions, 
freighted with the hopes of the race, would quickly be dashed 
to pieces on the rocks of interest, or whelmed beneath the bil- 
lows of passion o 

These evils, inseparable from man's bodily structure and 
earthly condition, are by a divine alchemy converted into goods 
and become tributary to the higher ends of his moral being. The 
more elementary constitution of the lower orders of the animal 
creation renders such conversion in their case impossible. The 
evils incident to their existence as organized beings are attended 
by no alleviations, and result in no good to them. The actual 
benefits experienced by man from this provision of his higher 
and more complex nature will depend much upon his own con- 
duct. Hence the proper question, in regard to this entire class 
of evils where they arise is not, Why God has sent them ? which 
would be natural and right if they were directly purposed by 
Him ; but another, very different and far more important ques- 
tion. How God would have us behave, under them ? with what 
temper meet them, and what lesson learn from them ? It is 
hardly necessary to add, that if they are seen on examination to 
have proceeded from causes within our control, our first busi- 
ness is to remove such causes. 



DIFFICULTIES WHICH PRESS THEISM. 137 

Finally, to recapitulate, we have seen that the evils complained 
of, where existence is thought to imply imperfection in the di- 
vine goodness or limitation of the divine power, are incidental 
only and not the object of contrivance and design ; that they 
grow out of provisions in man's constitution looking solely to 
beneficial ends ; that by no conceivable modification of that con- 
stitution could their possibility be excluded and these ends at 
the same time secured ; that inability to reconcile incompatibles 
and cause them to coexist implies in no proper sense limitation 
of power ; that the evils incident to man's earthly condition are 
reduced as far as possible by inventive and remedial devices ; 
and that after this reduction such as still remain are made sub- 
servient to the higher ends of his existence as a moral and ac- 
countable being. How appropriate, with a larger application, 
the question put through the mouth of the prophet : " What 
could have been done more for my vineyard that I have not 
done in it ? " 



THE RELATION OF GOD TO THE NATURAL AND 
MORAL WORLDS. 



LECTURE IV. 

On subjects which do not admit of positive knowledge we 
are obliged to content ourselves with probabilities. These 
may be of a higher or lower order according to the nature of 
the facts or analogies upon which they rest. They may amount 
to hardly more than a possibility, or they may rise to a presump- 
tion that is little short of certainty. The relation of God to the 
natural world is one of these subjects. We can only form opin- 
ions concerning it ; and one man has just as good a right to 
his opinion, if it is honestly and reverently formed, as another. 
That view of the relation which seems to any one most worthy 
of the divine character, and which stirs within him the deepest 
feelings of reverence, provided it be in harmony with all the 
known facts, is for him the best view ; and I would not seek to 
change it. But while saying this with all frankness, I should be 
untrue to my convictions if I did not express the belief that 
there is valid ground for choice among the opinions held upon 
the subject, whether considered with reference to their prob- 
able truth, or judged of by the influence which they are fitted 
to exert. Let us pass in review some of the most common of 
them, and see, if we can, which has the most to commend it. 
We will begin with that which is the oldest and has prevailed 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 139 

the most widely. It sujDposes matter to be eternal. Under this 
hypothesis two views of God's relation to it are possible, and 
have actually obtained to a large extent among philosophers. 
One supposes matter to be not only coeval with God but in cor- 
relation with Him. Matter is the outward form. God is the 
indwelling spirit. As in man, the body obeys the soul; so, 
throughout nature, matter yields obedience to the divine will. 
God is the anima mundi, the soul of the universe. All its move- 
ments are immediately dependent upon His volitions. The other 
view supposes matter to be only the plastic material upon which 
God works. In shaping it to His purposes He avails Himself of 
its natural qualities. He selects the particular kind or kinds of 
matter which are best, and employs them just as any other being 
of adequate intelligence would employ them. The structures 
of plants and animals are appealed to in support of this view. 
In building up these, it is said, matter is used by the Creator 
as if it already existed, and was, so to speak, furnished to His 
hands. It is taken just as it is. Its properties are made use 
of but not modified. Even when the most complex arrange- 
ments and combinations are necessary to attain a proposed end 
in accordance with its laws, those laws are not changed, but 
the combinations and arrangements are uniformly resorted to. 
In a word, matter is employed by God in the same manner as 
we ourselves, with the requisite power and skill, should employ 
it for like purposes. Granting all this, as I think we may, does 
it prove or tend to prove that matter was not originally created 
by God? Does it in reality afford any ground for such an 
opinion ? I cannot see that it does. We should naturally ex- 
pect that, having formed matter and endowed it with properties. 
He would employ it in such a way as to make those properties 



140 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

available to the purposes of creation. Any alteration of them, 
the resort in any emergency to new elements or new properties, 
would imply either defect in the constitution of matter or want 
of skill in employing it. We can, therefore, gain no light con- 
cerning its origin, from the way in which it is used. 

The vast scale upon which matter exists, the sublime ends to 
which it ministers, as well as the ceaseless round of changes 
through which it is constantly passing without itself undergoing 
change or diminution, naturally impress the mind with the idea 
of permanence, and it is not surprising that those who derived 
their light solely from nature should have generally believed it 
to be eternal. Such appears to have been the opinion of the 
ancient Egyptian philosophers. They were accustomed to trace 
the world back through a series of transformations to an orig- 
inal chaos, in which the materials composing it already existed, 
though enveloped in profound darkness, and without relation, 
order, or end. In this state they believed matter to be coeval 
with God, and limited the work of creation to educing from 
its chaotic elements the beauty, order, and harmony of the uni- 
verse. How like is this to some of the theories put forth at the 
present day by acknowledged authorities in science, except that 
in the modern teaching God is left out. These cosmological 
ideas, although originating on the banks of the Nile, like many 
other of the Egyptian doctrines, passed over to Greece and 
Italy, where they were incorporated, with slight alterations, into 
the prevailing mythological and philosophical systems. The 
highest conception of Deity, which seems to have been formed 
on either side of the Mediterranean, was that of a power in- 
timately pervading all matter, and continually evolving from 
it life, motion, order, and beauty. For the sublime idea of a 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 141 

Being who was able, by the simple exertion of His power, to 
give existence to matter, who " spake and it was," who " com- 
manded and it stood fast," who said : " Let there be light : and 
there was light," we are indebted to the Hebrew Scriptures. 
Dictated originally by inspiration, the idea has come down to us 
through the channel of these writings, along with other con- 
ceptions of the divine character, as far surpassing in grandeur 
anything we find in heathen mythologies. 

What led the ancients so very generally to regard matter as 
seK-existent and eternal, was, no doubt, their inability to con- 
ceive of it as coming into existence. They could in imagina- 
tion carry its existence forwards or backwards indefinitely, but 
they could not think of it either as beginning to exist, or as 
ceasing to exist. For a like reason many moderns have found 
difficulty in admitting the absolute creation of matter. Some of 
the best thinkers of the age believe that it must always have 
existed either actually or potentially. Sir William Hamilton 
thinks the causal judgment requires this. " Creation," he says, 
" is conceived, and by us conceivable, merely as the evolution of 
a new form of existence by the fiat of Deity." " Let us sup- 
pose the very crisis of creation. Can we realize it to ourselves, 
in thouo^ht, that the moment after the universe came into mani- 
fested being there was a larger complement of existence, in the 
universe and its Author together, than there was the moment 
before in the Deity Himself alone ? " " All that there is now, 
actually, of existence in the universe, we conceive as having vir- 
tually existed, prior to creation, in the Creator ; and in imag- 
ining the universe to be annihilated by its Author, we can only 
imagine this as a retraction of an outward energy into power." 
Such is Sir William's view of creation. Although not disposed 



142 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

to question its adequacy, I am by no means sure that it is all 
that the principle of causality, properly understood, allows. 
With his derivation and interpretation of that principle, he 
could not consistently go further. 

Another consideration, which seems to have had weight with 
the ancients in assigning to matter an independent existence, is 
the supposed facility offered by it for explaining, consistently 
with the divine perfections, the origin, and continuance in the 
world, of evil. This they attributed to the refractoriness of 
matter, to its imperfect obedience of the will of God, or to its 
want of entire plasticity under His hand, according to the one or 
other view taken of its relation to Him. It is hardly necessary 
to say that an equally satisfactory solution of what is confessedly 
one of the most difficult of problems is found in the govern- 
ment of the world by general laws, which, however wisely ar- 
ranged, would seem to be inadequate to meet and provide for 
all individual cases arising under them. 

A second theory of the relation of God to the universe, which 
with the first has substantially divided the world, goes to the 
opposite extreme. It denies to matter an existence separate and 
distinct from that of Deity. The universe is God acting. It is 
evolved by the ceaseless exertion of His power. It is a perpetual 
creation. It is the continuous product of the volitions of Deity. 
The universe, thus emerging from the bosom of God, may be 
conceived to embrace matter as commonly understood, with its 
inhering forces, or to include only the forces without the mat- 
ter, or to be limited to the mere outward phenomena without 
either matter or forces back of them, or finally to be restricted 
to ideas in the mind, directly awakened without material ante- 
cedents. 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 143 

On tlie first supposition we have theistie realism, on the sec- 
ond theistic dynamism, on the third theistie phenomenalism, 
and on the fourth theistic idealism ; or, to express the same 
thing in a different way, the first hypothesis gives us a universe 
of matter supported each moment through all its parts by the 
direct volitions of Deity ; the second, a universe of forces sus- 
tained in like manner by the immediate local and voluntary 
exertions of the divine power ; the third, a universe of ap- 
pearances similarly maintained ; the fourth, a universe of ideas 
immediately created by God in the mind of the percipient. All 
of these different views of the relation of Deity to the universe 
have been more or less extensively entertained, and some of 
them have found supporters among the best thinkers of the 
race. However Avidely they differ among themselves, they all 
agree in this, that they refer the universe, whatever it may be, 
whether real, or virtual, or j)henomenal, or ideal, to the imme- 
diate volitions of Deity. They suppose it to be, through all 
its parts, and in all its activities, the expression, representative, 
and product of those volitions. 

The considerations urged in favor of this theory are, first, 
that will-power is the only kind of power of which we have any 
knowledge, or of which we can form any conception. Secondly, 
that this theory of the universe converts it from an inflexible 
machine into a pliant instrument in the hands of God, adapted 
to the ends of His moral government. 

The first consideration will, I think, be seen, on reflection, to 
have little weight. It is true that will-power is the only kind 
of power which we know by consciousness, for the good reason 
that it is the only kind of power that we consciously exert. But 
have we not evidence of the exertion of power outside of our- 



144 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

selves ? Do we not witness its effects ? Are they not continu- 
ally before us ? Do we doubt their reality, or the reaKty of the 
cause producing them ? And is there anything clearer or more 
familiar to us than the distinction between voluntary and invol- 
untary power ? between the power of a man or a horse, and 
wind-power, or water-power, or steam-power ? Are we in any 
danger of confounding in thought, or of mistaking in reality, 
these two kinds of power ? Are not the laws of their manifes- 
tation different ? Is not one brought into exercise by the presen- 
tation of motive, and the other determined to action by the sup- 
ply of physical conditions ? In their varied exhibitions around 
us, do we not distinguish them as readily as we distinguish 
light from darkness ? Is it quite just, then, to say that will- 
power is the only power of which we have any knowledge ? 

But what is will-power ? How much and what does it in- 
clude ? Is the force of the blow dealt by a strong arm will- 
power ? Does will-power extend beyond the mere act of voli- 
tion ? The arm is paralyzed. The act of volition is performed 
as before. But does the arm move ? Does the act of volition 
in any case do more than liberate and give direction to material 
forces already stored in brain and muscle ? more than touch the 
key of the telegraph ? or hoist the gate of the water-mill ? or 
open the valve of the steam-engine ? or apply the match to the 
loaded cannon ? Is power of body or limb exerted in obedience 
to the will, in any proper sense, will-power ? any more than the 
flash of electricity along the telegraph wire, or the thrust of 
the piston, or the strain of the wheel, or the force of the ex- 
ploding cannon, is man-power ? 

Yet further. Are all our actions voluntary? Are not the 
larger part of them performed without conscious effort? Is 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 145 

any one of our faculties of much use to us till it has been 
trained by habit to what closely resembles automatic action ? 
Is our best work ever done under the flagellations of the will? 
Does not the mind, when most active, quite ignore our power 
over it ? Do we not apply the brake in vain ? Does not the 
train of thought still move on in spite of our effort to stop it ? 
If volition, then, has so small a part in any of our actions, 
and if in the performance of the greater number of them it 
does not consciously intervene, surely our own experience can 
afford but a slender basis for the generalization of will-power 
over the whole universe. 

Nor is the other consideration presented in favor of this of 
more weight. The inflexible character of physical events is due 
solely to the unvarying order of their occurrence. This order, 
which we learn from experience, remains the same, whether we 
suppose them to depend immediately upon the volitions of God, 
or to grow out of the constitution of things which He has estab- 
lished. Nor is there any more difficulty in supjDosing Him, for 
wise reasons, to interpose from time to time and change the 
order of events on one theory than on the other. No additional 
facilities are offered for the administration of either the moral 
or the providential government of the world by supposing all 
physical events to be immediately dependent upon the divine 
will. 

On the other hand, the argument for an Intelligent Author 
of nature is greatly weakened, if not wholly destroyed, by such 
a supposition. It does away entirely with the idea of second 
causes in the physical world, and with that, equally, the idea of 
devices, contrivances, instrumentalities, means, ends, and inci- 
dents, all of which presuppose second causes, and are impossible 



146 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

without them. The immediate dependence of material changes 
upon the divine will precludes their dependence upon one an- 
other. Their occurrence in a fixed order is not on account of 
any connection between them. They arise each one by itself, 
in perfect isolation, and hold to one another only a serial rela- 
tion. The tie between them must be in the divine nature, from 
which they are supposed to proceed directly, subject in their 
appearance, as we know, to fixed laws ; that nature in evoking 
them must act in obedience to these laws, and not for the 
attainment of material ends, the very idea of which is excluded 
by our theory. The originating cause of all things is thus 
placed as far beyond the reach of our faculties, and becomes as 
inscrutable to us as Mr. Spencer and men of his school would 
make it. The immediate reference of all natural events to the 
divine will in reality destroys the distinction between God and 
nature, and makes them both the same thing ; makes God na- 
ture, or makes nature God, whichever way we may prefer to ex- 
press it. We have, in fact, Tyndallism and Spencerism, only 
reached by a different road. 

Permit me now to state briefly what I believe to be the best 
view of the relation of God to the universe ; the view which is 
most philosophical, as I think, and more in accordance with the 
teachings of Scripture and of common sense. I suppose matter 
to have been created by God. I suppose it to have a real and 
not a merely phenomenal existence. I suppose the energies 
manifested by it to be inherent. I suppose God to have created 
it for wise and good ends, and to have fitted it for entering into 
structural devices adapted to the attainment of these ends. In 
accordance with this view of its constitution and purpose, I see 
around me a whole universe of such devices ; and it is from the 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 147 

beneficent ends to which they are everywhere ministering that I 
learn the character of their Author. These innumerable struc- 
tures, as we have already seen, are built up in strict accordance 
with the known laws o£ matter. Moreover, their sole object is 
the utilization of material properties and forces. It is only on 
the supposition that matter has a real existence and possesses 
properties that it can be employed as a means or used as an 
instrument. It is only on this supposition that the marvelous 
contrivance making up so large a part of the structures of all 
animals can subserve any purpose, or have any significance, or 
afford any ground for the deductions of natural theology. 

But must we not suppose matter, after its creation by God, 
to be still dependent upon Him ? Undoubtedly : to such an 
extent that He can at any moment annihilate it as readily as He 
brought it into being ; and in such a way that if we could sup- 
pose His existence to come to an end, the existence of matter 
would come to an end with it. But is not a constant exertion 
of the divine power necessary to sustain matter in being ? I do 
not know. I see no good reason, however, for supposing it. If 
the act of creation was complete, why should further effort be 
required on the part of the Creator ? Why should the contin- 
ued exertion of His power be necessary to keep in being what 
He has made, more than to keep Himself in being ? According 
to Sir William Hamilton's view of creation, which is, jj'erhaps, 
as intelligible as any that has been suggested, the universe, be- 
fore it came into manifested being, was virtually included in the 
divine essence. Why should it require support more than that 
essence? Is it objected that such an idea would leave the 
Infinite One, after having finished the work of creation, without 
further occupation ? Do we know that the work of creation is 



148 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

finished ? Is not space large enough to receive continually new 
creations from the hand of the Almighty ? Do not astronomers 
discover indications of such new creations ? Does not the tele- 
scope reveal the existence, on the outskirts of the visible uni- 
verse, of mighty expanses of vaporous matter, out of which 
worlds and systems of worlds are believed to be forming ? May 
not the creation, and pouring into space, of material for new 
worlds, together with the moral cast of those which He has 
already made and peopled, be supposed a fitting and suf&cient 
occupation ? Would it add to the dignity or grandeur of our 
conception of Him to suppose that besides this He is each mo- 
ment holding in existence every atom of matter in the universe ? 

Having presented for your election these different views of 
God's relation to the natural world, I will venture a few thoughts 
on his relation to the moral world. I will premise that I sup- 
pose the natural world to have been created for the moral, and 
in subordination to it. I suppose that all material provisions, of 
whatever nature or wherever found, look ultimately to the wel- 
fare of intelligent and sensitive beings. 

But is it certain that the requirements of a moral and provi- 
dential government can be fully answered by an administration 
conducted solely by general laws? May not emergencies be 
supposed to arise which such an administration would be inade- 
quate to meet, and of so important a character as to justify spe- 
cial Divine interpositions ? Such emergencies are certainly con- 
ceivable, and, when all the facts are considered, would seem not 
unlikely to arise. 

Now, in case of their actual occurrence, is there any reason, 
in the known constitution of things, why God should not inter- 
pose, and by the direct exertion of His power secure the impor- 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 149 

tant and desired ends ? No reason whatever. Does science 
reveal any difficulties in the way of such interposition ? None 
at all ; not the slightest difficulty ; supposing always the exist- 
ence of a personal God, distinct from nature, and not a mere 
nature divinity. But has not modern discovery, by extending 
the reign of law, increased the embarrassments attending the 
doctrine of miracles and of special providences ? Not at all. 
There are no scientific embarrassments attending these doc- 
trines. Both miracles and special providences suppose the 
reign of law, and would be impossible without it. There can 
be no suspension nor modification of a law, unless the law exist. 
The whole significance of a miracle depends upon its manifest 
want of conformity to law. Special providences, if anything 
more is meant by them than God's general providence in its 
relation to individuals, imply equally departure from law, but 
under circumstances that preclude observation. Special provi- 
dences and answers to prayer come, in respect to this, under the 
same category. There are no scientific difficulties lying in the 
way of either. Our knowledge of the conditions which control 
the ordinary events of life is so imperfect, that interpositions 
might be continually taking place all around us without our 
being in a single instance able to detect them. The only 
question concerning them is a question of fact. Does God in 
reality thus intervene, and change the course of physical events, 
in furtherance of the interests of his moral government ? The 
question is to be settled, like any other question of fact, upon 
evidence. There are no a priori objections to be met, no ante- 
cedent improbabilities to be overcome. The proper appeal, and 
only proper appeal, is, first, to the sacred Scriptures. For those 
who acknowledge their authority, the teachings of these are ul- 



150 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

timate as to the general doctrine. They throw no light, how- 
ever, upon the question of actual interposition in any given 
case. The probability of this can be judged of only from the 
attendant circumstances. 

Secondly. To experience. This, for reasons already stated, 
can at most furnish but presumptive evidence. As the suspen- 
sion of law or departure from it is assumed to take place under 
circumstances precluding observation, — otherwise it would be 
a miracle, and not a special providence, — it is alike impossible 
either to prove or disprove it. Probability is the most that can 
be attained in either direction. Even in those cases where the 
evidence of interposition seems clearest, there are always so many 
unknown elements that a wise man will be cautious in forming, 
and still more cautious in expressing, an opinion. What most 
strikes one, in the plan proposed by Mr. Tyndall a short time 
since for testing the efficacy of prayer, is its inadequacy, in a 
scientific point of view. No man knows better than he the ne- 
cessity, in conducting a chemical investigation, of perfect con- 
trol over all the conditions of the problem. And yet, to settle 
a question of the Divine procedure in the government of the 
world, he suggests an experiment in which not a single one of 
the conditions determining the result is fully known or con- 
trollable. 

But while the doctrine of special providences, including an- 
swers to prayer, has nothing to fear from the assaults of sci- 
ence, it is liable to have dishonor cast upon it by unwarrantable 
interpretations of God's purposes in the ordinary events of life. 
In fact, the readiness with which many good men discern the 
ends of Providence in human affairs has a tendency to weaken 
confidence in final causes generally, and thus to unsettle the 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 151 

foundation of all religious faith. If, instead of seeking to pene- 
trate the purposes of God, men would occupy themselves with 
endeavors to learn His will, their studies would be more fruitful 
of both wisdom and piety. The design of the Scriptures, so far 
as I am able to understand them, is to assure us of God's care, 
and of His willingness to hear our prayers, and to answer them 
in such way and to such extent as He may see best. When 
these teachings are pressed further than this, and made to jus- 
tify special interpretations of His providence, it is done, as it 
seems to me, quite without warrant. 

It should be further remembered that frequent interpositions 
in respect to physical events may not be necessary for securing 
the ends of the Divine government. As the manner in which 
these events affect us will always depend much upon our own 
and other men's actions, God may as easily turn them to His 
purposes by touching human wills as by changing the action of 
natural causes and intercepting the lines of antecedent and con- 
sequent in the outward world. Although the avalanche pause 
not in its precipitous descent, the traveller may be removed 
from the place overwhelmed by it. Although the tempest 
sweep onward, abating not a jot of its fury, the vessel may be 
turned from its track, and reach in safety the desired haven. 

The attempt is sometimes made to show how God may inter- 
vene in human affairs without suspension of natural laws, or in- 
terruption of the orderly flow of events. In endeavors of this 
sort recourse is had to human analogies. These, however, fail 
to meet the requirements of the problem. Moreover, the use 
that is made of them often discloses a painful misconception in 
regard to the sources of material phenomena. Why talk of the 
manipulation of laws, or of an arrangement far back out of 



152 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

human sight, for changing the course of physical events similar 
to that by which the direction of the locomotive, with its train 
of cars, is changed ? Is it not far better to state and maintain, 
as taught by the Scriptures, the simple doctrine of interposition, 
without attempting to explain the mode ? Are not infinite re- 
sources at the Divine command ? May not God as easily touch 
by the finger of His power, in the atoms themselves, the source 
of all natural phenomena as manipulate laws, whatever we are 
to understand by the expression ? If it is meant that God may 
employ natural agents for accomplishing His purposes in the 
same manner as man employs them for the accomplishment of 
his purposes, namely, by means of appropriate contrivances such 
as the water-wheel, the windmill, the steam-engine, and the 
magnetic telegraph, does this tend to simplify, or in any man- 
ner facilitate our conception of the Divine interposition ? How 
much better, how much more dignified, how much safer every 
way, to leave the doctrine just as the Scriptures leave it, with- 
out an attempt at explanation ! Occupying a position that is 
impregnable, it needs no support from human analogies. 

But does not the prevalence of law in the natural world, it 
will be asked, render petitions touching physical events of 
doubtful propriety ? Not if the conditions determining them 
are unknown to us. Any future event in which we, or our 
friends, or our country, or the world, is interested, so long as 
the will of God concerning it is unknown, is, I think, a proper 
subject for prayer. After that will has become apparent, we 
cease to pray. Our duty, then, is submission. Let me illus- 
trate. A friend is sick. Surely it is proper for us to ask God 
that He will restore him to health. The symptoms increase in 
gravity. Not knowing the will of God, we still pray for his re- 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 153 

covery. At length a stage is reached in the disease beyond 
which recovery, without a miracle, is impossible. We no longer 
pray for his restoration to health, but ask that he may be pre- 
pared for the change awaiting him. All this is as reasonable 
and Christian as it is natural. The impulse to pray springs 
from a sense of our dependence, and its propriety under given 
circumstances depends much upon the state of our knowledge. 
What, indeed, are any of our petitions but the requests of weak- 
ness and ignorance preferred to an Almighty and Omniscient In- 
telligence ? There should run through them all the refrain of 
submission, not my will, but thine be done. 

Take another illustration. With our present meteorological 
knowledge, I think there can be no doubt of the propriety 
of asking God for the genial sunshine, for timely rains, and 
for fruitful seasons, as well as for exemption from devastating 
storms on land and at sea. I do not see how any intelligent, 
thoughtful man can question either the suitableness or the piety 
of such prayers. They are as right as, they are natural. Should 
the conditions determining the movements of the atmosphere 
ever be brought within calculable formulas, so that the phases 
of the sky could be predicted with as much certainty as an 
eclipse of the moon, or a transit of Venus, — which is not at 
all probable, — then our relations to the weather would be en- 
tirely changed. God having given us the power of foreseeing 
atmospheric changes, it would be but reasonable that He should 
require us to accommodate our movements to them. To neglect 
doing this, and then ask Him to work a miracle for us, would 
be an act of presumption. It would not be prayer, but a tempt- 
ing of God. Warm years and cold years, rainy seasons and dry 
seasons, winds and calms and floods and tempests, being as cer- 



154 THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 

tainly foreknown by us as the alternations of day and night, 
or the orderly succession of spring, summer, autumn, and win- 
ter, would cease to be subjects for prayer, and the department of 
nature to which they belong would no longer be a theatre for 
special providences. It is not the certainty of any future event, 
nor the Divine decree in regard to it, but our knowledge of that 
certainty, and of the Divine decree, that makes petitions con- 
cerning it unallowable. 

The thoughts which I have ventured to offer on the relation 
of God to the natural and moral worlds are : That matter was 
in the beginning created by God. 

That it has a real existence, and possesses inherent energies. 

That it is dependent upon God to such an extent that He can 
at any moment annihilate it ; and in such a way that, could we 
suppose His existence ever to come to an end, the existence of 
matter would come to an end with it. 

That there is no sufl&cient reason for supposing matter to be 
dependent for its continued existence or for its powers upon the 
immediate and ceaseless volitions of Deity. 

That matter is used by God as an instrument, and always in 
strict accordance with its properties. 

That it is from the innumerable devices resorted to, for mak- 
ing these properties available for special ends, that we gain a 
knowledge of the divine existence and character ; or, in other 
words, God, the great first cause, reveals to us His being and 
attributes through the use which He makes of second causes in 
accomplishing His beneficent purposes. But for such use of 
second causes we should have no evidence of a powerful and in- 
telligent existence back of them. They would be to us ultimate 
causes. 



THE NATURAL AND MORAL WORLDS. 155 

That there is no reason in the known constitution of thinofs 
why God, in the administration of His moral government, should 
not secure, by the direct exertion of His power, important ends 
not otherwise provided for. 

That science reveals no difficulties in the way of such inter- 
positions. 

That when manifest and addressing the senses, we call them 
miracles ; when hidden from our sight, special providences. 

That whether such interpositions ever have occurred, or do 
now occur, is simply a question of fact, to be settled on evidence. 
Science has nothing to do with it. 

That what the doctrine of interpositions, whether miraculous 
or otherwise, has most to fear from is the want of boldness and 
consistency in its maintenance. And, finally. 

That any future event in which we are interested, so long as 
the will of God concerning it is unknown to us, is a proper sub- 
ject for prayer. 



COLLATERAL PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM 

DESIGN. 



LECTURE V. 

We have seen thus far in the course of our inquiry that 
the physical world is written all over with the evidences of in- 
telligence and design ; that these do not appear only in the 
structure and endowments of organized beings, but are still 
more strikingly exhibited in the delicate adjustments of the 
vast system of machinery by which, out of materials the most 
unpromising, such beings are everywhere in process of forma- 
tion ; that the innumerable contrivances which are seen in na- 
ture, or, more properly speaking, which constitute nature, all 
look to beneficent ends ; that when without additional provisions 
these ends would be imperfectly attained, or trouble and an- 
noyance would be caused by the instrumentalities employed in 
reaching them, such supplementary provisions, remedial or pre- 
ventive, are as far as practicable appended to the main design ; 
that incidental evils, so largely checked or remedied, do not 
suppose either imperfection in the divine goodness or limitation 
of the divine power ; that the relation of God as Creator to 
the natural world supposes the ability to change at His pleas- 
ure the order of material phenomena, but does not necessarily 
suppose the dependence of those phenomena, as they ordinarily 
arise, upon His immediate volitions ; that the only alternative 
to natural and revealed theism, which are substantially one, is 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 157 

materialism or pantheism, which differ from one another in lit- 
tle but nomenclature ; that materialism is embarrassed at every 
step with the gravest difficulties ; that these difficulties are met 
by a succession of hypotheses having no foundation in ascer- 
tained facts and with but the slenderest support from analogies ; 
and that some of them involve not merely what is incomprehen- 
sible, but what is absolutely unthinkable. 

I now proceed to inquire whether beyond the evidences of in- 
telligence and purpose in nature, — using this term in its broadest 
sense, including man as well as the external universe, — whether 
beyond the evidences of mind in nature there be not other facts 
which, though not in themselves proving the existence of a per- 
sonal God, are more readily explained on that supposition than 
on any other, and so far support and strengthen the argument 
from design. I will first ask your attention to the proportion 
and harmony existing among the infinities which lie all around 
us, which the imagination cannot indeed grasp, but of whose 
reality the reason and observed phenomena give us assurance. 
I do not here refer to space and time ; these are conceived by us 
as necessary. We cannot in thought annihilate them. Neither 
can we in thought affix any limits to them. Though the whole 
universe were blotted out of existence, these would still remain. 
They have been made the basis of a direct argument for the ex- 
istence of an Infinite Being to whom they are supposed to hold 
the relation of attributes. The argument was first proposed, 
if I remember rightly, by Dr. Samuel Clarke. It afterwards 
received a quasi indorsement from Bishop Butler. It is, how- 
ever, founded on a misapprehension of the nature of space and 
time. They are not conceived by us as existences, or as the 
attributes of any existence, but as antecedent conditions of all 



158 PROOFS OF TEE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

being. They are necessary ideas of the human intelligence. 
We cannot divest ourselves of them nor of the belief in cor- 
responding outward realities. 

However the ideas of space and time may have found their 
way into the mind — and about this philosophers are not agreed 
— they have been vastly extended by the revelations of science ; 
and it is through these that we have become acquainted with 
another order of infinities — less absolute, it may be, but equally 
transcending our powers of thought — an order of created in- 
finities occupying space and time, and, possibly, commensurate 
with them. It is through these created infinities that the great- 
ness and power of the Creator are disclosed : nor is it possible 
to form a sublimer conception of Him than these under the 
light of modern discovery are fitted to impart. ' The finite every- 
where opens into the infinite. Whichever way we turn, there 
stretch out before us limitless vistas of being. If we direct 
our gaze backward, it is met by an endless line of events which 
finally loses itself in the depths of a past eternity. Wherever we 
are, to whatever part of creation we in imagination transport our- 
selves, fathomless abysses of power still open beneath and around 
us. It is true science is directly concerned only with second 
causes. But by widening continually the visible empire of these 
it opens to us larger and more sublime views of the first cause. 
Instead of hunting God from the universe as it has sometimes 
boasted, and as timid minds have feared that it would do, it has 
been constantly discovering new grandeurs and glories which 
only reflect more brightly the divine perfections. How do our 
minds dilate with conceptions of the power of God, when, on a 
serene winter night, we gaze into the heavens in the light of all 
that modern discovery has made known to us ; when we recall 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 159 

and in imagination try to realize the magnitudes and distances of 
the countless orbs above and around us which illumine the far- 
off depths of space ; when we remember that the whole visible 
firmament is but the hem of the garment of materiality in 
which it hath pleased the Infinite One to enrobe Himself ; that 
beyond the utmost reach of our unaided vision are other firma- 
ments equal in magnitude and splendor to our own, which the 
telescope alone reveals to us ; and that still more distant, on the 
outskirts of the visible creation, are discerned tracts of faintly 
luminous matter out of which new worlds and systems of worlds 
are believed to be in process of formation. The microscope, too, 
discloses to our wondering gaze equal marvels of the divine 
handiwork, — beings so minute that thousands of them together 
can scarcely be perceived by the naked eye ; and yet every one 
perfectly organized, built up of parts, and these parts again com- 
posed of myriads of atoms, each one of which, in the light of 
the most advanced teaching of science, expands into a cluster 
of worlds. The infinitely little and the infinitely great equally 
transcend the powers of human thought. To God they are 
alike easy and are alike characteristic of the works of His hand. 
In proportion to the vastness of God's plans is the length of 
time embraced in their execution. A thousand years are with 
Him as one day. How impressive an illustration of this truth do 
we have in the past history of the earth ; in the slow progress 
of the changes by which He prepared it, step by step, for human 
habitation ! Although the end must have been distinctly in 
view from the beginning, periods of time were occupied in reach- 
ing it which appall and bewilder when we try to realize them. 
And yet, what is the entire lapse of the geologic ages but a point 
on the dial-plate of that eternity which He inhabiteth ! 



160 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

Equally in harmony with the comprehensiveness of God's 
plans and the vast periods of time involved in them are the ex- 
haustless provisions of energy for ceaselessly carrying them for- 
ward. We hear much in these days of the conservation of force, 
of its indestructibility, of its disappearance in one form only to 
be followed by its reappearance in another and equivalent form. 
From the manner in which it is often referred to, we might im- 
agine that this law alone was sufficient to account for the unin- 
terrupted flow of events in the natural world, without supposing 
continual upwellings of fresh energy from the bosom of matter. 
Let us consider for a moment what is really embraced in the 
doctrine of the conservation of force, and what, should the doc- 
trine ever be established, it would be adequate to explain. 

Force is known to us under two essentially different forms ; 
the most familiar of these, as well as the best understood, is that 
exhibited by a moving body. It is not inherent nor fixed, but 
free to pass from the body in which it for the time appears to 
any other body. This second body may in turn transmit it to 
a third, and so on indefinitely. Matter thus serves as a mere 
vehicle of this kind of force ; and if, as is believed, its ultimate 
molecules are perfectly elastic, it will receive and transmit it 
without loss. This force of matter in motion may be transferred 
from mass to mass, or from mass to atoms, or from atoms to mass, 
or from atoms to atoms. After all these transfers, the force or 
the quantity of motion by which it is measured will remain the 
same, supposing always the perfect elasticity of the ultimate 
constituents of bodies. Such, neither more nor less, is the doc- 
trine of the conservation of force, including its convertibility. 

The force of matter in motion is as widely diffused as matter 
itself ; for matter is nowhere at rest. Its masses are in motion. 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 161 

Its atoms are in motion. The sun, with its attendant worlds, is 
ceaselessly urging its way through unknown regions of space. 
Even the stars, so long regarded as fixed, are believed to be 
slowly changing their positions. In the case o£ many of them, 
movement has already been demonstrated, and we may presume 
it would be discoverable in all but for their vast distances from 
us. Indeed, the law of gravitation would seem to necessitate 
movement in all the aggregated masses of matter within its em- 
brace. The earth, besides turning daily upon its axis, and par- 
taking of the common motion of our system through space, 
makes its annual journey round the sun, traveling at the rate 
of more than a thousand miles per minute. Every particle of 
matter in it has its own movement, vibrating, gyrating, or ro- 
tating, according to the nature of the impulse communicated to 
it. All matter is restless. To ears sufficiently delicate, there 
would be atomic music as well as the music of the spheres. "A 
grain of dust," says President Wurtz, in his late address before 
the French Association for the Promotion of Science, " is full 
of innumerable multitudes of material unities, each one of which 
is agitated by movements. All vibrates in the little world. In 
that as well as the great, motion is the universal law." This 
motion is both transferable and convertible, the quantity always 
remaining the same. The gentle pulses of the solar beam put the 
winds in motion. These beat upon the ocean and communicate 
a portion of their force to its waves. The waves, dashing for a 
time against one another, and breaking, it may be, upon adja- 
cent coasts, at length sink to rest. In doing so, they evolve as 
much heat as was expended in raising them. Their visible mo- 
tion, which has disappeared, is replaced by an equal amount of 
invisible molecular, or heat motion. The steam-engine derives 
11 



162 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

its power from the incessant bombardment of its piston by the 
imprisoned molecules of steam. There is a loss of invisible or 
heat motion equal in amount to that which appears in the work- 
ing of the engine and attached machinery. Were the earth to 
be arrested by a sudden shock in its course round the sun, all 
its motion would be converted into molecular or heat motion, 
and would be sufficient,^ it has been estimated, to raise the tem- 
perature of the entire mass through 11,200 degrees, and turn 
the greater part of it into vapor. If, when brought to rest in its 
orbit, it were allowed to fall upon the sun, as it would, if left to 
itself, with continually increasing velocity, the heat evolved, it 
is calculated, would be four hundred times greater. If all the 
stellar suns, including our own, with their accompanying worlds, 
were suddenly brought by the fiat of Omnipotence to a state 
of rest, their motions of rotation and translation, converted into 
molecular or heat motion, might be sufficient to cause a return 
to their original nebulous condition, or, without change of tem- 
perature, to carry them back to the regions of space where they 
first appeared. 

In all of these supposed cases, it will be perceived, we have 
only the conversion of one kind of motion into another ; and 
if, as assumed, it takes place without loss of motion, it is be- 
cause, as already stated, of the perfect elasticity of the constit- 
uent molecules of bodies. But upon what does the elasticity of 
these molecules depend ? Upon each molecule being held in its 
position, by an exact balance of attractive and repulsive forces, 
unceasingly in action, but varying in intensity with the distance 
of the molecules, though not according to the same law. These 
forces, unlike the force of matter in motion, are fixed, incom- 
municable, untransferable. They may originate motion, but 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 1G3 

experience no loss of energy in doing so. The motion orig- 
inated by them may be either molecular or heat motion, or 
motion of masses, that is, motion of translation. Chemical 
affinity gives rise to the first, and the attraction of gravitation 
to the second. When motion of either kind has been produced 
by these inherent forces of matter, it may be converted into the 
other without loss. But the conversion is efPected, it should be 
remembered, only through the agency of these permanent un- 
derlying forces, inscrutable as they are exhaustless. There is, 
in fact, no proper conversion of motion. There is the arrest of 
one kind of motion and the origination of another equal in 
amount. A little reflection will show this. 

In every molecular vibration there is alternate destruction and 
renewal of force. At the limits of the vibratory movement the 
molecule has its motion taken from it, and is brought to a mo- 
mentary state of rest. A new motion is then communicated to 
it, equal in amount, but in the opposite direction. The phe- 
nomenon is analogous to that of the shuttlecock playing be- 
tween two battledoors. The continual playing of this, back- 
wards and forwards, might as well be taken as an instance of 
the conversion of force. All that we have, however, in either 
case, is the destruction and renewal of force following one an- 
other in rapid succession. The shock of the avalanche is 
received by the elastic molecules of its own mass, and of the 
rocks and earth upon which it sticks. These molecules approx- 
imate one another until the increase of repulsive energy is suffi- 
cient to balance the force of the descending mass, and thus 
arrest its motion. The more energetic repulsion produced by 
the momentary approximation of the molecules intensifies these 
vibratory movements, and causes a proportionate rise in tern- 



164 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

perature. In all cases where one form of motion disappears, 
and another comes into view and takes its place, we shall find, 
on examination, that it is by the intermediation of these under- 
lying forces of attraction and repulsion, in comparison with 
which the force of moving bodies, however vast it may be, or 
however widely diffused through the universe, is but a grain of 
sand on the sea-shore, or a single drop amid the oceanic waters. 
Gunpowder, nitro-glycerine, or the fulminates of mercury and 
silver, may serve to give us some idea of the forces, attractive 
and repulsive, embosomed in all matter. They are not greater 
in these than in other substances, but only in less stable equi- 
librium. Every cubic inch of earth, or rock, or wood, or flesh, 
holds in disguise forces as great, attractions and repulsions as 
intense, as the most explosive compound ever invented by man. 
We have seen with what velocity — a thousand miles per min- 
ute — the earth flies along its orbit; and yet the sun, at the 
distance of nearly a hundred millions of miles, by its silent 
attraction, takes from it all its motion, and imparts to it an 
equal amount in an opposite direction, twice every year. The 
sun is, in like manner, bending all the other planets into curvi- 
linear movements above itself. And although it has been doing 
this enormous amount of work during the entire geologic ages, 
it shows no signs of exhaustion nor decline of power. These 
mighty forces of attraction and repulsion, in ceaseless operation, 
as active and fresh and full of energy now as on the morning 
of creation, profoundly mysterious, as inscrutable as they are 
mighty, which no thoughtful man can contemplate without awe, 
and which, embodied in nature, some of our scientific friends 
would have us worship as the only and true God : these forces, 
I say, are not limited to the material universe, but extend out 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 165 

into the surrounding ether. Indeed, it is in this thin fluid, if it 
be a fluid, that energy is most conspicuously manifested. So 
great is its tenuity, that wavelets are formed in it only the sixty 
thousandth part of an inch in breadth ; and with such intensity 
do its particles repel one another, that these wavelets are prop- 
agated through it with the amazing velocity of two hundred 
thousand miles per second ; or about a million times faster than 
sound-waves travel through the air. We have in this subtle 
essence as near an approach to pure force, or force without 
matter, as it is possible for the mind to conceive. 

How insignificant, then, is the mere force of moving bodies, 
to which alone the law of convertibility and conservation ap- 
plies, by the side of mighty, living forces, pervading all matter, 
emerging apparently from its atoms, taking on the forms of at- 
traction and repulsion, or at least most readily conceived by us 
under these forms, ever active, not only originating all motion, 
but converting and conserving it when originated ! Or what is 
this same force of moving bodies in comparison with the ocean 
of ethereal energy, embosoming the material universe, and 
stretching on, it may be, through the infinitudes of space ? It 
is in these ever living forces, pervading all things, sustaining all 
things, encompassing all things, — the source of all motion, tire- 
less, exhaustless, infinite, — that the power of the Omnipotent 
One is most distinctly adumbrated. They are only, however, in 
due proportion to the vast plan for whose execution they were 
provided, — a plan embracing the whole visible and invisible 
creation, and reaching down through the cycles of eternity. 
They illustrate the harmonious perfections of Him who is in 
all and over all. 

I proceed to notice very briefly certain endowments of the 



166 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

human mind or soul which might be expected i£ it were formed 
by a personal God, but which are not so readily explained on 
any other supposition. There can be no doubt that a sense 
of duty, the feeling of dependence, the sentiment of reverence, 
and an impulse to worship, belong essentially to the nature of 
man. Equally universal with these, however originating, is the 
belief in a superior Intelligence, or superior Intelligences, to- 
wards whom the religious sentiments are directed. As the testi- 
mony of Mr. Herbert Spencer on this subject cannot be thought 
prejudiced, I give it. " That the countless different," I quote 
his words, " and yet allied phenomena, presented by all relig- 
ions, are accidental, or factitious, is an untenable supposition. 
A candid examination of the evidence quite negatives the doc- 
trine maintained by some that creeds are priestly inventions. 
Even as a mere question of probabilities, it cannot rationally be 
concluded that in every society, past and present, savage and 
civilized, certain members of the community have combined to 
delude the rest in ways so analogous. To any who may allege 
that some primitive fiction was devised by some primitive priest- 
hood before yet mankmd had diverged from a common centre, 
a reply is furnished by philology ; for philology proves the dis- 
persion of mankind to have commenced before there existed a 
language sufficiently organized to express religious ideas. More- 
over, were it otherwise tenable, the hypothesis of an artificial 
origin fails to account for the facts. It does not explain why, 
under all changes of form, certain elements of religious belief 
remain constant. It does not show us how it happens that, 
while adverse criticism has from age to age gone on destroying 
particular theological dogmas, it has not destroyed the funda- 
mental conception underlying these dogmas. It leaves us with- 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 167 

out any solution of the striking circumstance that when, from 
the absurdities and corruptions accumulating around them, na- 
tional creeds have fallen into discredit, ending in indifferentism 
or positive denial, there has always by and by arisen a reasser- 
tion of them, if not the same in form, still the same in essence. 
Thus the universality of religious ideas, their independent evo- 
lution among different primitive races, and their great vitality, 
unite in showing that their source must be deep-seated instead 
of superficial. In other words, we are obliged to admit that if 
not supernaturally derived, as tho majority contend, they must 
be derived out of human experiences, slowly accumulated, and 
organized. 

" Should it be asserted that religious ideas are products of 
the religious sentiment, which, to gratify itself, prompts imagi- 
nations that it afterwards projects into the external world, and 
by and by mistakes for realities ; the problem is not solved, but 
only removed further back. Whether the wish be father to the 
thought, or whether sentiment and idea have a common gen- 
esis, there equally arises the question. Whence comes the senti- 
ment ? That it is a constituent in man's nature is implied by 
the hypothesis, and cannot be denied by those who prefer other 
hypotheses." 

This view of the human constitution, so forcibly presented by 
Mr. Spencer, is borne out by the teachings of history. All the 
great faiths which have swayed mankind are believed to have 
been originally monotheistic. The belief in one God, eternal 
and omnipotent, the Source and Author of all things, would 
seem to be native to the human soul ; or, if not native, to be 
an immediate inspiration of the reason and conscience. Idola- 
try and polytheism appear as corruptions of this belief. In 



168 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

Buddhism and Brahminism, as we first find them, and also in 
that marvelous faith which prevailed so many thousand years 
ago on the banks of the Nile, the fundamental truths of natural 
rehgion stand out with scarcely less prominence than in Judaism 
or Christianity. The spiritual needs of man are recognized, 
and provision in different ways is made for them. The moral 
law is promulgated under divine sanctions. Some of its noblest 
utterances are anticipated by the founders of the early faiths 
and philosophies. Confucius, who lived between five and six 
hundred years before our era, is said to have enjoined the 
doingf unto others as we would have them do unto us. At a 
still earlier period, the obligation to love God, and to do good 
to man, to give food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, cloth- 
ing to the naked, and shelter to the outcast, was recognized by 
the devout Copt. Many of the precepts of Buddha call to 
mind the inspired wisdom of Solomon, and even the more di- 
vine words of Him who spake as never man spoke. The late 
Bishop Cotton, in an address to the students of a missionary 
institution at Calcutta, advised them to use a certain hymn of 
the Rig Veda, the most ancient of the Hindu Scriptures, in 
their daily prayers. Socrates, who lived at a later period, but 
still more than four hundred years before Christ, thought it 
was noble to forgive injuries, and do good to enemies, but knew 
that men were not prepared for so unselfish and God-like a 
virtue. 

I do not refer to this universal recognition of a supreme 
Being, and of the duty of rendering obedience and homage to 
Him, as a proof of the actual existence of such a Being, al- 
though it has been so considered, but simply as showing that 
man is constituted precisely as we should expect him to be con- 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 169 

stituted on that supposition, — that the endowments of his na- 
ture are in harmony with that supposition, and more readily ex- 
plained upon it than upon any other supposition. They thus 
support and corroborate the argument from the marks of de- 
sign, so apparent in every part of nature. Had the constitution 
of man been different, an explanation would have been de- 
manded, which theism could hardly have furnished. As it is, 
theism, and theism only, satisfactorily accounts for his consti- 
tution. 

But the most imj)ortant support to all the truths of natural 
reliofion — the fullest confirmation of them — is derived from 
Revelation. More light was needed than nature alone can give. 
So strongly was this felt by Socrates that he looked for some 
communication from an immediate and divine source. Indeed, 
if God had never spoken, if the grave had remained forever si- 
lent, the very fact would shroud in deeper mystery the problems 
of man's origin and destiny. In moments when faith is weak, 
and a world of matter and sense presses hard on every side, and 
God holds Himself from us ; when we go forward, but He is 
not there, and backward, but we cannot perceive Him ; on the 
right hand where He doth work, but we cannot behold Him ; 
and He hideth Himself on the left hand that we cannot see 
Him, and there is no audible or visible response to our most 
passionate yearnings after Him ; we need all the assurance of 
His presence and care that a direct revelation from Him can 
give us. 

Christianity both supplements and confirms natural religion. 
By assuming the fundamental truths of natural religion, it 
lends to them the support of its own evidences, internal, his- 
toric, and miraculous. Natural religion, in turn, renders to 



170 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

Christianity scarcely less important services. They mutually 
strengthen and support each other. Natural religion has inhe- 
rent and necessary defects ; Christianity supplies them. Natu- 
ral religion contains within it a prophecy of better things to 
come ; Christianity is the fulfillment of that prophecy. Natural 
religion reaches out into the darkness, and with uncertain hand 
feels after immortality j Christianity brings it to light. Natu- 
ral religion, under a sense of guilt and ill-desert, piles its altars 
with costly sacrifices, in the hope of averting the divine wrath, 
and propitiating the divine favor, but neither peace nor joy 
comes through them ; Christianity offers free pardon for sin, 
and the joy of innocence and hope of heaven, through an infi- 
nite and divine atonement made by God's own Son, sufficient 
for the whole race. Natural religion has exhausted its resources 
in endeavors to make men better ; with what success the his- 
tory of the world, and of the faiths which have prevailed in it, 
sufficiently shows. These faiths, although generally founded on 
the truths of natural religion, have utterly failed to purify and 
elevate humanity. Nay, they have themselves sunk, one after 
another, under the weight of corruptions with which they were 
overlaid by human interests and human passions, and which 
they had not vitality and strength enough to throw off. Chris- 
tianity has at command new forces, and employs a different 
method. It does not attempt to reform merely ; it regenerates. 
It does not seek to gather grapes from thorns, nor figs from 
thistles. It puts the grape in place of the thorn, and the fig in 
place of the thistle. It reaches conduct through character, and 
character through its hidden sources in the soul. It renovates, 
purifies, and elevates society, by renovating, purifying, and ele-^ 
vating all the members of society. It is, moreover, endowed 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 171 

with an intensity of life and vigor which enables it not only to 
free itself from the rubbish of error and abuses which time col- 
lects about it, but to burst the forms in which men would im- 
prison it, and snap the withes of creeds with which they attempt 
to bind it. 

Many of the difficulties of natural religion disappear under 
the light of Christianity. How, for instance, does the revealed 
fact, that this world is intended as a place for moral probation ; 
that all its arrangements bear upon that end ; that the chief 
purpose of life is the formation of character, and that our ex- 
istence here is only preparatory to another and higher existence 
beyond this world, — how do these revealed facts change the 
aspects of our earthly being and condition? Mysteries are 
resolved ; fears are dissipated ; darkness gives place to light ; 
good comes out of evil ; and suffering, disease, and death are 
turned into angels of mercy. 

I have said that natural religion is best understood when 
studied in the light of Christianity, — that there is much in 
God's Book of Nature which Christianity alone interprets. Per- 
mit me to add, that I think it almost equally important that the 
truths of revelation should be studied in the light of natural 
religion. Unless so studied, our conceptions of them are Hable 
to be narrowed and distorted by the medium through which 
they are presented. In the Book of Nature God speaks to us 
in His own language, and says what is unutterable in any form 
of human speech. In the Book of Revelation, He speaks to us 
in a human language, and under human forms of thought. 
The communication must be adapted to the limited and imper- 
fect vehicle through which it reaches us. Who can gaze into 
the heavens, or look out upon the ocean, without feeling how 



172 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

inadequate any combination of mere words must be, to embody 
and express the divine thought ! It is by studying the Word of 
God and the works of God, each in the light of the other, that 
we may hope to arrive at the truest and fullest knowledge of 
His character, and learn more of His will and purpose concern- 
ing us. Not a little of the breadth and strength and power of 
Bishop Butler was due to his having drawn so largely from both 
sources. 

I have not thus far spoken of the bearings of the important 
question which we have been considering upon the interests and 
destinies of humanity. In closing, I may be permitted briefly 
to refer to them, though not in the character of argument. The 
doctrines of a personal God and a human soul stand or fall to- 
gether. No God, no soul, no hereafter. The grave is our end 
— the bound of all our hopes and fears and joys. We lie 
down in it, in eternal forgetfulness. Indeed, it is the percep- 
tion of this consequence of materialism and pantheism that 
commends these faiths to some of our scientific friends. They 
see in them deliverance for mankind from the fears of a here- 
after. How different is the spirit of Mr. Edward B. Tylor, as 
manifested in his work on " Primitive Culture," one of the ablest 
and saddest books which I have ever read, — sad, from the con- 
stant reflection by its pages of struggle with unbelief. At the 
close of one of his chapters on animism, he speaks of the doc- 
trine of a future state as follows : — 

He who believes that his thread of life will be severed once and for- 
ever by the fatal shears, well knows that he wants a purpose and joy 
in life which belongs to him who looks for a life to come. Few men 
feel real contentment in the expectation of vanishing out of conscious 
existence, henceforth, like the great Buddha, to exist only in their 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 173 

works. To remain incarnate in the memory of friends is something. 
A few great spirits may enjoy, in the reverence of future ages, a thou- 
sand years or so of " subjective immortality ; " though, as for mankind 
at large, the individual's personal interest hardly extends beyond those 
who have lived in his time, while his own memory scarcely outlives the 
third and fourth generation. But, over and above these secular mo- 
tives, the belief in immortality extends its powerful influence through 
life, and culminates at the last hour, when, setting aside the very evi- 
dence of their senses, the mourners smile through their tears and say it 
is not death, but life. 

If, turning away alike from the teachings of nature and the 
teachings of revelation, we refuse to believe in a personal God, 
in what shall we believe? If, deaf to the innumerable voices 
which come from without and from within, we reject theism, 
what shall we take in its place ? Shall it be atheism, or mate- 
rialism, or pantheism ? Not atheism, surely ; not shallow, un- 
reasoning atheism. Anything better than that. Better the 
rehabilitation in nature of her ancient divinities. Better for 
head, better for heart, better for soul. Better that Apollo 
should again curb with his strong arm the fiery steeds of the 
Sun, — the swift-footed Hours dancing in faithful attendance 
around his flying car. Better that Neptune should once more 
traverse the ocean in his dolphin-drawn chariot, ruling by his 
trident the waves, with a huge train of gamboling monsters in 
his wake. Better that the forests should be still peopled by 
dryads, and that every river and brook and fountain should have 
its naiad. Better that the features of a god should look out 
from every knoll and rock and tree than that a blank, dead 
atheism should spread over and empale all nature. 

Shall it be materialism, with its vast masses and mighty forces 



174 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

and eternal processes ? Better this than atheism. Shall we 
worship masses and forces and processes ? if we can ; it is bet- 
ter than no worship. Shall we say to nature, embodying those 
masses and forces and processes, but irradiated by no light 
of mind. Thou art our God ? Better a Nature God, uncon- 
scious and without intelligence, than no God. But let us look 
at materialism a little more nearly, and what it really is ; 
what it gives us ; how it evolves the order and harmony of the 
universe, and what and for what man is made by it. It may be 
profitable to listen a moment to its teachings. Whence this fair 
world, with all its provisions for the support of such myriads of 
joyous existences ? " It was self -evolved. Mind had no part 
in its production. All its apparent array of means was the 
mere result of chance — one of the possible issues of an original 
chaos of atoms, every one of whose movements was determined 
by blind law. Nature, not God ; Nature, herself blind and un- 
conscious, is the author of all these nicely-adjusted arrange- 
ments — of all this furniture of life in the heavens above us, 
and in the earth under us. After countless ages of unconscious 
struggle, of combinations and recombinations, of constructions 
and reconstructions innumerable, this grand result was at length 
blindly reached." Whence the innumerable tribes of plants and 
animals by which the earth is tenanted ? " Nature, after having 
by a whole past eternity of unconscious struggles accidentally 
effected the organization of our planet, continued her blind 
efforts, and at length, by a chance combination of the right ele- 
ments, gave birth to the first living being. A starting-point 
was thus secured for a new series of developments. From this 
starting-point life was carried upwards, partly by fortunate acci- 
dents rewarding the uninterrupted struggles of Nature, partly 



PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 175 

by the conscious and voluntary efforts of the individual to adapt 
himself to new conditions, and partly by natural selection or the 
survival of the fittest. Millions of ages roll away. The mol- 
luscan, ichthian, reptilian, and mammalian types are successively 
reached. At length the persevering efforts of unconscious Na- 
ture, seconded by favoring circumstances and happy chances, 
are rewarded by the appearance of one of the quadrumana." And 
what of man ? " Man comes next. He is a monkey of larger 
growth ; with cranium more developed, and extremities more spe- 
cialized, — but still a monkey. His parentage is revealed in every 
feature. His life, too, shows it. He is born and grows up. He 
eats ; he drinks ; he sleeps ; he loves ; he hates ; he hopes ; he 
fears ; he dies. His intelligence is greater, owing to the larger 
size of his brain. Hence he clothes himself ; he builds houses ; 
he plants trees ; he rides ; he dances ; he buys ; he sells ; he 
talks about philosophy and law, free-will and foreordination, 
and evidence of design, and causes efficient and final, and es- 
sences material and spiritual. But after thus riding and dan- 
cing and talking away the brief span of his existence, he dies 
like the monkey, and, like the monkey, transfers the life, which 
he had received from others, to the worms that feed upon him. 
His dust goes to feed the roots of a neighboring tree, or clothe 
with fresh beauty the flowers that bloom over it." And is that 
all? That is all. Such is undisguised materialism. Shall 
we embrace it, and give up the worship of God and hope of 
heaven ? 

Nor has pantheism more to recommend it. In fact, it differs 
from 'materialism in little but name. The substance of things 
remains the same, whether we call it matter or whether we call 
it God. Both deny the existence of a personal Intelligence 



176 PROOFS OF THE ARGUMENT FROM DESIGN. 

(with the attributes of will and character), and it is only such a 
Being that can awaken our love and reverence, or that we can 
draw near to in worship. Pantheism is as much at variance 
with the evidences of design in the external world as material- 
ism. It is also as far from satisfying the demands of our spir- 
itual nature. What is it to me, when my heart reaches out after 
God, and I fain would know Him, to be informed that He is all 
around me, in everything which I see and handle ; that the food 
which I eat, the water which I drink, the garments which I wear, 
and the ground upon which I tread, are parts of Him ? What 
is it to me, when my soul is filled with dread and horror at 
thought of falling into naught, when I pant for life — for 
" more life and fuller " — for life immortal ? What is it to me 
to be assured that death is only a change ; that, though I shall 
personally cease to exist, the elements of my being will con- 
tinue ; that they will enter into new combinations and minister 
to new forms of life ; that they will cut the air in wing of bird, 
or cleave the water in fin of fish, or blush in the rose, or ex- 
hale in fragrance from the lily, or flutter in the breeze, or dance 
in the sunbeam, or vibrate in ether, or seek, it may be, enduring 
repose in bed of limestone or block of granite ? I turn indig- 
nantly away from all this impertinence, to listen to the voices of 
nature and the voice of revelation, and receive from all around, 
within, and above me, the assurance of a personal God and 
Heavenly Father, who knows and loves me, and whom I, made 
in His likeness, may know and love and dwell with forever. 



A DISCOURSE 



COMMEMORATIVE OP 



FRANCIS WAYLAND, 

DELIVERED BEFORE THE ALUMNI OF BROWN UNIVERSITY, SEPTEMBER 4, 1866. 



Alumni of Brown University : 

Since we last gathered on this consecrated spot, to extend to 
one another the hand of cordial greeting, and to receive afresh 
the benediction of our Alma Mater, a great sorrow has fallen 
upon us. He whose presence was so intimately associated with 
these scenes, who more than any one else attracted hither our 
annual pilgrimages, whom we so honored and loved, our early 
instructor and guide and friend, whose prayers ceased not daily 
to ascend for us, and whose blessing ever followed us, the great, 
the good, the venerated Wayland is no more. How did the sad 
tidings, when first borne by telegraph over the land, smite upon 
our hearts ! How did pursuit for a time pall, and desire slacken, 
and motive fail ! A part of our very being seemed taken from 
us. The same sky was no longer over us. A light, which had 
beamed so long and so benignantly upon us, had gone out. 
The same atmosphere was no longer around us. A great heart, 
with such power of sustaining and comforting by its sympathies, 
had ceased to beat. A grand and heroic nature, whose simple 

12 



178 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

presence was an inspiration to every virtue, had passed from 
the earth. 

But the loss and grief were not ours alone. We have a large 
companionship in sorrow. The exalted character of him whom 
we mourn, his great public services, and his long life of unselfish 
devotion to the highest interests of humanity, made him very 
widely known, and gave him a place in the affections and 
respect of the community, such as few are permitted to hold. 
Of this the various organs through which popular feeling is 
accustomed to express itself have given evidence. The press 
all over the land has borne witness to the sincerity and depth 
of the public grief. Numerous benevolent associations have 
recorded their profound sense of the loss which the interests of 
virtue and the cause of philanthropy have everywhere sus- 
tained. The pulpit, while it has mourned the removal of one 
of its chief ornaments, has paid spontaneous and fervid homage 
to his exalted worth and to the power of his Christian charac- 
ter. Literature has hastened to embalm in her own frankin- 
cense his name, that it may go down to posterity among the 
benefactors of the race. 

And now we have assembled to mingle our grief with the 
general sorrow ; to recall the more prominent events in the his- 
tory of one whose life was so true, so beneficent, so worthy ; to 
review his eminent services, extending over a period of almost 
half a century, and reaching in their influence every interest of 
society ; to trace anew the lineaments of his grand character, 
and to hang the picture forever in the chambers of memory. 

In the discharge of this grateful office the duty of speaker 
has devolved upon me. Although I am fully aware of the 
magnitude and difficulty of the task assigned me, and painfully 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 179 

conscious that I am wholly unequal to it, in obedience to your 
commands, as well as from love of the service, I shall endeavor 
to perform it as I best may, relying upon your indulgence for 
my many, and, as I fear, grievous shortcomings. I am the less 
embarrassed, when I remember that the portrait which I would 
have you contemplate is already in your minds, and that I have 
only to touch aright the chords of association in order that it 
may stand out before you in all the massive strength and 
beauty of the original. 

Francis Wayland was born in the city of New York, March 
11, 1796. He was the son of Rev. Francis and Sarah Way- 
land, who came from England to this country a short time pre- 
vious to his birth. His father was a clergyman of the Baptist 
denomination, remarkable rather for the goodness of his heart, 
and the guilelessness, simplicity, and purity of his Christian char- 
acter, than for those more brilliant qualities which dazzle and 
captivate in the popular preacher. His mother was a woman of 
high intellectual endowments and great force of character. Of 
her as well as of his father, he always spoke with the deepest 
filial reverence. While he was still a boy, the family removed 
to Poughkeepsie. At the academy in that place, under the care 
of Mr. Daniel H. Barnes, he took his first lessons in the Latin 
and Greek languages. He remained there until the spring of 
1811, when at the age of fifteen years he entered the sophomore 
class, in Union College, Schenectady, New York. Of his col- 
lege course I have little knowledge. He was accustomed in 
after life to speak of it as having embraced too much reading 
and too little study. But, from the fact that he was subse- 
quently invited to become a member of the faculty, I infer that 
his scholarship must have been at least satisfactory. 



180 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

Soon after leaving college, lie commenced the study of medi- 
cine under Dr. Hale, of Troy, with whom he remained about six 
months. He then entered the office of Dr. Eli Burritt, of the 
same place, and continued with him until his medical studies 
were completed. A more than usually intimate relation seems 
to have grown up between instructor and pupil. The Doctor, 
who was an able man, and genial companion, as well as skillful 
physician, took delight in opening to the enthusiastic young 
student the rich stores of his professional reading and experi- 
ence. He also extended to him freely the opportunities which 
a large practice offered for the actual study of the different 
forms of disease, taking care to guide him aright in making 
observations and in deriving conclusions from them. It was 
under these favoring influences that he first awoke to a con- 
sciousness of his powers, and that his mind acquired those 
practical tendencies by which it was ever afterwards charac- 
terized. I am inclined to believe that no period of his life was 
richer in memories, or more fruitful in results, than the two 
years which he passed as a student of medicine in the office of 
Dr. Burritt. He never mentioned the name of this early friend 
and instructor but with expressions of affectionate respect and 
gratitude. 

But the foundation that was so carefully laid for success and 
eminence in his chosen profession was destined to serve other 
and different purposes. He had but just been admitted to prac- 
tice, when a change took place in his views of life and his con- 
victions of duty, which caused him to abandon it. Believing 
himself to be called by the Master to labor in His spiritual vine- 
yard, he at once began preparation for the new employment. 
In the autumn of 1816, three years after graduation, he entered 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 181 

the Theological Semmary at Andover, Mass. Professor Moses 
Stuart had for some time previous occupied the chair of Sacred 
Literature in that institution. He was now in the full maturity 
of his powers, though not yet at the height of his fame. He 
had already commenced that reform in biblical study which was 
to constitute the most important work of his life. Casting off 
the shackles of a dogmatic theology, and freeing himself from 
the trammels of immemorial usage, he applied the same rules of 
interpretation to the Scriptures as to other ancient writings, and 
accepted the unqualified meaning which they gave him. In the 
preparation of his courses of instruction he drew largely from 
new and hitherto unopened sources. The stores of German 
philology and criticism were unlocked by him, and made avail- 
able for the first time to the American student. By his rare 
gifts of language and illustration, by the novelty and boldness 
of many of his views, and by the ardor with which he pressed 
them, and more especially by the earnestness and eloquence with 
which he vindicated the simple, unadulterated Word of God as 
the only and sufficient rule of faith and practice, he kindled in 
his classes an enthusiasm which knew no bounds. " Some of 
his pupils," I quote the words of one of them, " almost looked 
upon him as a being from a higher world. The hour when they 
first saw him was a kind of epoch in their history." 

Under this great master, the recently awakened powers of 
the medical student received a fresh stimulus, and he entered 
with the utmost zeal upon his new field of study. He soon 
found it to afford scope for the freest and most expansive exer- 
cise of every faculty. Embodying a literature of great variety 
and richness, containing truths the grandest and the most mo- 
mentous that the human mind ever contemplated, and sup- 



182 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

ported in every utterance by the authority of inspiration, the 
Bible, studied under such a teacher, became incomparably the 
most interesting of all books. Grammar, philology, geography, 
and history, local and general, were in turn pressed into the 
service of developing and elucidating its meaning. Every day 
enlarged the field of his mental vision. Every week brought 
with it a conscious increase of power. Every month found him 
with a deeper knowledge of the Word of God, and a profounder 
reverence for its teachings. During his residence at Andover, 
he learned what, if he had accomplished nothing else, would 
have made it an important era in his life : he learned how to 
study and how to teach the Bible — two things which he never 
afterwards forgot. I have listened to many able and eloquent 
expounders of the Scriptures ; but I have never heard any one, 
who, whether in pulpit or class-room, unfolded their meaning 
with so great naturalness, simplicity, and power as President 
Wayland. Few of the pupils of Professor Stuart caught more 
of his spirit, and none of them in after life cherished for the 
great biblical interpreter a profounder respect and admiration. 

In the fall of 1817, after a year's residence, he left the Theo- 
logical Seminary, to accept a tutorship in Union College. This 
new position introduced him to relations most favorable to 
growth and culture. His teaching embraced a large variety of 
subjects. It was not confined to a single department, but ex- 
tended, at different times, to nearly the entire college course. 
In the academic circle he was brought into daily intercourse 
with minds of large experience and rich and varied culture, at a 
time of life when such intercourse is most improving. It was 
during his tutorship that he first really knew President Nott, 
and that the mutual love, respect, and admiration was awak- 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAY LAND. 183 

ened which continued to grow for half a century. The four 
years spent in these happy relations he ever after recalled with 
the liveliest interest, and was accustomed to speak of them as 
the most important in his life. It was during this period that 
his character especially took its form and pressure, and that he 
first gave assurance of the brilliant future that was before him. 

Although chiefly occupied with the duties of instruction, he 
continued to a certain extent his theological studies under the 
immediate direction of Dr. Nott. He also preached occasion- 
ally in the neighboring towns and villages. In August, 1821, 
he received ordination and accepted the pastoral charge of the 
First Baptist Church in Boston. The advantage of his long, 
varied, and thorough training preparatory to entering upon the 
field of labor to which he believed himself called, became at 
once apparent. His sermons from the commencement showed 
marked ability. They were characterized by a range and ele- 
vation of thought, an eloquence of diction, and a depth and 
fervor of feeling, which raised them far above the level of ordi- 
nary pulpit discourses. Soon he became known through them 
to the public. Hardly had two years elapsed, when his elo- 
quent defense of missions extended widely his name and fame, 
and gave him a place among the first orators of the land. 

Nor did he, in the care with which his preparations were 
made for the pulpit, forget the humbler duties of the pastor. 
He was much among his people. He learned their characters 
and circumstances. He put himself in personal relations with 
them. He sought occasions and opportunities for seeing them 
and pressing upon their attention the obligations and duties of 
religion, ever remembering that it was individual souls that were 
to be saved ; that it was individual human souls, and not con- 



184 A DISCOURSE ON FMANCIS WAYLAND. 

gregations of men and women, that he must account for to the 
Master. Besides the direct personal influence which he thus 
exerted, he was enabled, by the knowledge of character gained, 
to adapt his public ministrations more perfectly to the wants of 
his people. It was a maxim with him, that a minister who per- 
forms with fidelity his pastoral duties will never lack for sub- 
jects when he enters the pulpit. 

Mr. Wayland remained with the church in Boston five years. 
In the autumn of 1826 he returned to Union College, having 
accepted an appointment to the chair of mathematics and natu- 
ral philosophy. His stay here was destined to be but of short 
duration. About this time the presidency of Brown University 
became vacant. The Rev. Dr. Messer, who had held that office 
for nearly a quarter of a century, and who, as tutor, professor, 
and president, had given to the institution a whole life of hon- 
orable service, beginning to feel the weight of years press upon 
him, sent in his resignation. In looking for a successor, the 
corporation soon turned their attention to Professor Wayland, 
who, during the brief period of his ministry, had established 
for himself the reputation of a profound thinker and brilliant 
orator. At a meeting held December 13, 1826, he was unani- 
mously elected to fill the vacancy, and the February following 
he entered upon his presidential duties. He was now in the 
first prime of life, with all his powers in their full vigor, and 
with a work before him of sufficient magnitude to suitably task 
them. 

In the later years of his predecessor's administration the dis- 
cipline of the college became relaxed, and the spirit of study 
among the undergraduates declined. The instruction in several 
of the departments was given by persons having other occupa- 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND, 185 

tions, who saw the young men only in the recitation or lecture 
room, and who had no share in the responsibilities of govern- 
ment. In these circumstances a disposition to license had shown 
itself, which, however unfriendly to order and the diligent pur- 
suit of learning, the authorities found it difficult to suppress. 
The necessity of reform was deemed urgent by the friends of 
the college. This may be inferred from a resolution passed by 
the corporation at the same meeting at which the election took 
place, declaring " it to be the duty of the President of this Uni- 
versity to see that the laws are executed, and that the officers 
of instruction, and others immediately connected with the insti- 
tution, do their duty." At a subsequent meeting it was further 
resolved, " that no salary or other compensation be paid to any 
professor, tutor, or other officer, who shall not, during the whole 
of each and every term, occupy a room in one of the colleges, 
and assiduously devote himself to the preservation of order and 
the instruction of the students, and the performance of such 
other duty as may belong to his station." 

President Wayland proceeded with his accustomed prompti- 
tude and energy to carry out the important reforms indicated. 
In doing so he met, as was to be expected, with opposition, both 
without and within the college. Ideas long entertained were 
disturbed. Immemorial customs were rudely jostled. Time- 
honored shelters, under which mischief had found protection, 
were broken down. The various disguises and coverings by 
which indolence had contrived to make itself respectable were 
plucked off. Diligent application to study, and a laudable am- 
bition to excel, were stimulated by new, and, as was claimed, 
invidious honors. The traditions of the college were unceremo- 
niously set aside, and others, from a foreign source, it was said, 



186 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

were substituted for them. It is not in human nature — cer- 
tainly not in student nature — tamely to suffer encroachment 
upon prescriptive rights and privileges. Angry feelings were 
aroused. Indignant protests were made against the innovations. 
Soon a spirit of resistance to authority manifested itself in all 
the protean forms which ingenuity could devise, and the circum- 
stances of life in college would permit. One of the mildest of 
these modes of expressing public sentiment was delineation on 
the wall of the halls, and the lecture rooms when these could 
be entered. I recall a spirited sketch executed by a classmate, 
which represented very well the prevailing current of opinion 
and criticism. It comprised two figures. Dr. Messer, seated in 
his old chaise, with reins fallen, and whip lost, was jogging leis- 
urely on. Directly before him and in clear view lay the gulf of 
perdition. Near by was Dr. Wayland, in a buggy of the new- 
est fashion harnessed to an animal on whose build and muscle 
two-forty was plainly written. He was headed in the same 
direction, and, with taut rein and knitted brow and kindling 
eye, was pressing with all his might forward. 

But the students soon learned with whom they had to deal. 
Opposition was vain. Remonstrance, however passionate, proved 
useless. Resistance to authority, whatever form it might assume 
or whatever strength it might acquire from combination, availed 
nothing. It was the wave dashed against the rock, only to be 
beaten back in spray. In some of the fiercer assaults, individ- 
uals were thrown in the recoil to so great a distance that they 
never found their way back. They left their college for their 
college's good. The greater number presently became reconciled 
to the new order of things, and forgot their angry feelings in 
the general enthusiasm for study, which already began to be 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 187 

awakened. Before a twelve-month had passed, all were con- 
scious of new impulses and higher aspirations, and a quickening 
and invigoration of every faculty, from the wholesome discipline 
to which they were subjected. And as conscious injustice is not 
a vice of students, those who had been the most bitter in their 
denunciations were now the loudest in their praises. The pro- 
foundest eulogiums which I have ever heard pronounced upon 
President Wayland as an instructor and officer of government 
have come from men who were in college at this time, and 
who formed their estimate from the character and ability exhib- 
ited in these circumstances. The opisosition outside of the col- 
lege continued somewhat longer ; but having its origin for the 
most part in misconceptions, it, too, soon passed away. 

Having placed the government and discipline of the Univer- 
sity on a satisfactory footing. President Wayland next sought to 
improve the instruction and raise the standard of scholarship 
and character. The use of books, except in the languages, was 
prohibited in the recitation room. The lessons assigned were 
required to be mastered, by both teacher and pupil, before en- 
tering it, so that the topics embraced might be freely and fully 
discussed by them. The pupil was expected to do something 
more than answer questions, or repeat the words of the text- 
book, or recite in their order the successive paragraphs. He 
was required to give, as far as he might be able, in his own 
language, the course of argument, or the train of thought ; to 
separate it into its component parts ; to distinguish the principal 
from the subordinate, the essential from the accidental, the sub- 
stance from the form ; in a word, to discriminate sharply be- 
tween the important and the unimportant in each paragraph, 
section, and chapter, and to present the former divested of tho 
latter, with a due regard to order and connection. 



188 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

This mode of conducting recitations proved, in the hands of 
able and skillful teachers, a most efl&cient means of culture. 
Besides bringing into constant activity some of the most impor- 
tant faculties, it accustomed the mind to processes presupposed 
in all good writing or effective thinking. It also tended strongly 
to break up that pernicious habit of mere word-learning, which 
from the training of boyhood so many bring with them to col- 
lege. The effect was soon apparent in a larger intellectual 
growth and in a more manly character. Judge Story, when pro- 
fessor in the Cambridge Law School, was accustomed to say, as 
I have been informed, that he could distinguish a graduate from 
Brown University by his power of seizing upon the essential 
points of a case and freeing it from all extraneous matters. 

This new mode of teaching introduced by President Wayland 
was known in college at the time as the analytic method. The >^ 
student was said to recite by analysis. As in the case of all 
other modes of instruction, its success depended greatly upon 
the character of the teacher. With incompetence in the chair, 
or stupidity behind the desk, it was liable to degenerate into an 
unmeaning and worthless formalism. I recall an extreme case. 
A graduate, who had left the institution a short time previous 
to engage in the business of instruction, called upon me, partly, 
I suppose, for sympathy, and partly to afford me the pleasure of 
knowing how admirably he was succeeding in his new employ- 
ment. He had adopted fully, he informed me, the university 
methods. He taught everything by analysis. As I had had 
the honor of instructing him in geometry, he drew his illustra- 
tions from that study. He made his pupils, he said, commence 
at the beginning of each book, and repeat the propositions in 
their order to the end ; and then commence at the end and re- 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 189 

peat them backwards to the beginning. He particularly asked 
my attention to the latter exercise as an extension of the prin- 
ciple of analysis and an actual improvement upon the teaching 
in college. 

The prevalence of a higher spirit and better methods of study 
prepared the way for extending the established courses of in- 
struction, and also for introducing new courses. Advantage was 
taken of the openings thus made, as fast as the means of the 
institution would permit. The French language, in which in- 
struction had not previously been given, was first made a part 
of the curriculum. Afterivards the German was introduced as 
an elective study. Courses were also established in political 
economy, in history, and in several of the physical sciences. The 
means of instruction were at the same time greatly enlarged, in 
the form of apparatus, books, specimens, maps, models, and 
other aids of a similar character. The fruit of these augmented 
resources of the university was seen in larger acquisitions and in 
a more varied and richer culture. 

To reach the characters and quicken the moral impulses of 
the young men, President Wayland availed himself of every 
channel that was open to him. He saw them often in pri- 
vate. His usual appellation of " my son," while it was a sim- 
ple expression of his interest in them, and of the care and 
responsibility which he constantly felt for their welfare, had 
the effect of softening the severer official relation, and invest- 
ing with something of a paternal character his suggestions and 
counsels. These personal conversations were always most sal- 
utary in their influence, and not unfrequently marked an epoch 
in the history of the young man, from which his life took a 
new reckoning. 



190 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

He attended frequently, and during periods of special inter- 
est constantly, the religious meetings that were held in college« 
Some of his prayers and exhortations at these meetings will be 
long remembered. Under their influence the light of a new life 
for the first time broke upon many a one who has since become 
himself a light and a power in the Christian Church. For a 
long series of years, he met every Sunday evening a class for 
the study of the Scriptures. This was always well, and at 
times, numerously attended. Many were attracted by the intel- 
lectual excitement and stimulus which it afforded. The great 
doctrines of Christianity were unfolded with a freshness, beauty, 
and power which made them seem like new revelations. Its 
practical teachings were enforced by arguments more cogent, 
and appeals more eloquent and thrilling, than any to which I 
have elsewhere listened. The spell of the senses was broken. 
The mind awoke as from a dream. The material and tangible 
melted away under the power of the invisible. This world be- 
came shadow, and the other world substance. Character, char- 
acter, character was everything ; all beside, nothing. With the 
hope of influencing larger numbers, President Wayland, at a 
later period, substituted for the Bible class preaching in the 
chapel on Sunday afternoons. To this change, the world owes 
his University sermons. They were delivered, with others not 
published, to an audience made up partly of students and partly 
of citizens. They are unquestionably among his ablest and 
most eloquent productions. They were listened to with pro- 
found, and, at times, thrilling interest. But I do not think 
their moral or religious effect was so great as that of the hum- 
bler service whose place they took. 

Another channel through which he sought to reach and affect 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 191 

character was the daily instructions of the recitation and lecture 
room. The sciences which he taught — intellectual and moral 
philosophy — were peculiarly favorable to this, and he shaped 
his courses in them with special reference to it. Little time was 
occupied with the metaphysical inquiries which underlie and 
cluster around these sciences. Questions of a merely specula- 
tive interest, having no practical bearing, were quickly disposed 
of. Whether the mind be simple or complex, whether it act im- 
mediately or through faculties, whether its knowledge of the ex- 
ternal world be intuitive or representative, what force is, and how 
originated, whether it be inherent in matter, or external to it and 
only exerted upon it, whether creation was a completed act or 
the first moment of an exertion of power ever since continued, 
the origin of moral evil, the nature of right, the reconciliation 
of human accountability with the divine Sovereignty, and other 
similar problems, were either passed by altogether, or referred to 
merely in indicating the bounds of possible knowledge ; or they 
were mentioned as illustrations of the yearning with which the 
mind, shut up in the prison-house of the senses, reaches out to- 
wards the illimitable expanse of being around it, or were pointed 
out as hopeless inquiries upon which the highest efforts of the 
most gifted intellects of the race have, for the last thirty cen- 
turies, been vainly expended. The respective spheres and of- 
fices of the different mental powers or faculties, the laws by 
which they are governed, their combined action in the higher 
intellectual operations, their proper use, discipline, and culture, 
conscience, obligation, duty, the moral law, its divine sanction, 
the consequences, both here and hereafter, of its violation, — 
these were the themes upon which he discoursed with such ear- 
nestness in the lecture-room, and which are presented so clearly 
and so forcibly in his admirable text-book. 



192 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

But President Wayland liked the concrete better than the 
abstract. He preferred to consider man as a living, thinking, 
acting person, rather than as an assemblage of powers and sen- 
sibilities. He was more interested in studying the forms of in- 
tellectual and moral development growing out of the varying 
activities of the several faculties, than in the study of the facul- 
ties themselves. His mind was wonderfully rich in conceptions 
of character. Ideals of commanding power, of exalted good- 
ness, of sublime virtue, were ever floating through its chambers 
of imagery. These he scattered like gems, in lavish profusion, 
along the whole pathway of his instructions. It was the quick- 
ening, inspiring, educating power of these that was most felt 
by his pupils, and that kindled to the greatest ardor their enthu- 
siasm. It was by the contemplation of these chiefly that they 
were so " inflamed with the study of learning and the admira- 
tion of virtue ; stirred up with high hopes of living to be brave 
men and worthy patriots, dear to God, and famous to all ages." 
It was these ideals which they especially carried from the halls 
of the University out into the world, to be always present with 
them, rebuking indolence, lifting from the debasements of 
mammon and sense, and soliciting ever to a higher and wor- 
thier life. ' 

Another means employed by President "Wayland for awaken- 
ing impulse, and correcting, guiding, and elevating public senti- 
ment in college, was addresses from the platform in the chapel. 
These were most frequent and most characteristic in the earlier 
days of his presidency. They occurred, usually, immediately 
after evening prayers, and took the place of the undergraduate 
speaking, which at that time formed a part of the daily college 
programme. The occasions which called them forth were some 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 193 

irregularity, or incident, or event, which seemed to render 
proper the application of the moral lever to raise the standard 
of scholarship or character. We all knew very well when to 
expect them. 

As the students, then, with few exceptions, lived within 
the college buildings, and took their meals in Commons Hall, 
they constituted, much more than at present, a community by 
themselves. They were more readily swayed by common im- 
pulses, and more susceptible of common emotions. When gath- 
ered in the chapel, they formed a unique, but remarkably 
homogeneous, audience. President Wayland was at that time 
at the very culmination of his powers, both physical and intel- 
lectual. His massive and stalwart frame, not yet filled and 
rounded by the accretions of later years ; his strongly marked 
features, having still the sharp outlines and severe grace of 
their first chiseling ; his peerless eye, sending from beneath that 
Olympian brow its lordly or its penetrating glances, he seemed, 
as he stood on the stage in that old chapel, the incarnation of 
majesty and power. He was raised a few feet above his audi- 
ence, and so near to them that those most remote could see the 
play of every feature. He commenced speaking. It was not 
instruction ; it was not argument ; it was not exhortation. It 
was a mixture of wit and humor, of ridicule, sarcasm, pathos, 
and fun, of passionate remonstrance, earnest appeal, and solemn 
warning, poured forth not at random, but with a knowledge of 
the laws of emotion to which Lord Kames himself could have 
added nothins*. The effect was indescribable. No Athenian 
audience ever hung more tumultuously on the lips of the divine 
Demosthenes. That little chapel heaved and swelled with the 
mtensity of its pent-up forces. The billows of passion rose and 

13 



194 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

fell like tlie waves of a tempestuous sea. At one moment all 
were burning with indignation ; the next they were melted to 
tears. Now every one was convulsed with laughter, and now as 
solemn as if the revelations of doom were just opening upon 
him. Emotions the most diverse followed one another in quick 
succession. Admiration, resentment, awe, and worship in turn 
swelled every bosom. At length the storm spent itself. The 
sky cleared, and the sun shone out with increased brightness. 
The ground had been softened and fertilized, and the whole air 
purified. 

When the resources of appeal, both private and public, had 
been exhausted. President Wayland did not hesitate to employ 
other and more potent means for maintaining order, good gov- 
ernment, and a high spirit of study. He was a vigorous dis- 
ciplinarian. The very fullness of his energies disposed him to 
strong measures ; and he may sometimes have resorted to them 
when milder ones would have succeeded. In treating the dis- 
eases of youth, especially college youth, he inclined to the heroic 
practice. He did not believe in administering remedies in ho- 
moeopathic doses. He aimed not at a mere alleviation of the 
graver symptoms of the malady, but sought its radical cure. 
Although here and there a feeble constitution may have suf- 
fered under this vigorous treatment, by far the greater number 
were vastly benefited by it. How many are now able to look 
back to good habits formed and manly purposes strengthened 
through his wholesome discipline ; to sterility turned into fruit- 
fulness by the subsoiling received at his hand. 

President Wayland identified himself in a remarkable degree 
with the college. That was always his first interest. To that 
everything else was subordinate. For that he gave himself to 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 195 

the most unwearied and unremitting labors. During periods 
of irritation and disturbance, it was out of his thouglits neither 
night nor day. When there were grounds for apprehending 
mischief or any moral irregularity, every part of the buildings 
was subject at all hours to his visits. He was especially jealous, 
both in himself and in those associated with him, of any other 
interest that might ablactate, to use his own strong language, 
the college. All labor, all time, all thought must be given to 
that. His ideas of professional obligation in this respect were 
unusually stern and exacting ; but as he illustrated and enforced 
them by his constant example, they became the ideas of his 
faculty. Their spirit also passed by a sort of contagion to the 
undergraduates, and developed in them a more earnest and 
manly type of character. 

Besides this high sense of duty evinced by him in everything 
which he did, he brought to the work of teaching a noble en- 
thusiasm. It was in his estimation a high employment. No 
other surpassed it in true dignity and importance. Of no other 
w^ere the results greater or more beneficial. The boundless 
wealth of a universe was the birthright of mind ; but only by 
the proper training of its faculties was it enabled to enter into 
possession of the rich heritage. Education was one of the plas- 
tic arts. The material wrought upon was finer than alabaster, 
more enduring than brass or marble ; capable of being moulded 
into forms of imposing grandeur or bewitching grace or sub- 
duing beauty. He who worked at this art worked not for time 
only, but for eternity. Receiving a spiritual instead of a ma- 
terial embodiment, his conceptions became immortal. 

These inspiring ideas constantly animated his zeal, and quick- 
ened to the highest activity every faculty, while they imparted 



196 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

to his instructions an earnestness and fervor which neither dull- 
ness nor indifference could resist. All associated with him in 
the care and oversight of the college caught something of his 
ardor, and put forth in their several spheres fresh efforts for ad- 
vancing its interests. His noble conceptions of the instructor's 
office and work, carried out from the University by his pupils, 
and spread still more widely through his writings, did much to 
raise teaching in public estimation, through all its grades, to 
the dignity of a profession. They also drew upon him the at- 
tention of the country, and placed him, by universal consent, in 
the first rank of educators, without a superior, if not without an 
equal, in the land. 

In 1833, six years after coming to Providence, Dr. Wayland 
published his first volume of discourses. This included his two 
sermons on the " Duties of an American Citizen," so widely 
read and so justly admired when first given to the public ; his 
famous sermon on the " Moral Dignity of the Missionary Enter- 
prise," numerous editions of which had already gone out, bear- 
ing his name wherever the English language was spoken ; and 
also his discourse on the " Philosophy of Analogy," delivered 
before the Phi Beta Kappa Society of Rhode Island on its first 
anniversary. The last, although of a less popular character 
than the others, is remarkable for a rare felicity of conception 
and treatment, for the fine vein of original thought which runs 
through it, for the grace and beauty of its illustrations, and for 
the classic finish of its style. It is pervaded throughout by a 
highly philosophic spirit,' and contains passages of the loftiest 
eloquence. 

In 1835, two years later, his work on Moral Science ap- 
peared. This was succeeded in 1837 by his Political Economy, 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 19V 

while his Intellectual Philosophy was delayed till 1854. These 
works were especially designed for text-books, and embody sub- 
stantially the instructions which he had previously given to his 
classes by lecture. They do not claim to be complete and ex- 
haustive treatises on the sciences to which they relate, but only 
to present so much and such portions of these sciences as may 
properly find a place in the collegiate course. While sufficiently 
elementary to meet the wants of the ordinary student, they dis- 
cuss with great ability some of the highest and most difficult 
problems which human nature and society present. Their style 
is purely didactic, direct, simple, and perspicuous, but without 
ornament. They are books to be studied rather than to be 
read. But instructive and admirable as they are, they give but 
a faint idea of the marvelous interest with which the same 
truths were invested when unfolded and illustrated by the living 
teacher under the inspiration of the class-room. The appear- 
ance of the Moral Science was opportune. The need of such a 
work had long been felt. It was almost immediately adopted 
by a large number of the colleges, academies, and high schools 
of the country ; and although thirty years have since elapsed, it 
still holds its place in them with hardly a rival. The use of the 
Political Economy and Intellectual Philosophy, though quite 
extensive, has, I think, been less general. 

While thus indefatigably laboring within the walls of the 
University, President Wayland was continually called upon to 
render various and important public services. There was hardly 
an association in the country, whether for educational, philan- 
thropic, or religious objects, of which he was not a member, 
and which did not look to him for advocacy, counsel, and sup- 
port. To the cause of Christian missions, which was ever dear 



198 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

to liim, he gave more than the service of an ordinary life. His 
commanding eloquence, and the great weight of his opinions, 
caused him to be in constant requisition as a public speaker. 
His orations and other occasional discourses, all productions of 
marked ability, and many of them models of the species of lit- 
erature to which they belong, would, if collected, swell into vol- 
umes. By these outside labors he greatly extended, not only 
his own fame, but that of the institution over which he pre- 
sided ; securing for it a rank and position not previously en- 
joyed, and attracting young men in larger numbers to its 
courses. Under his fostering care all its resources were greatly 
augmented, and its interests, external as well as internal, ad- 
vanced. On coming to Providence, he found the college with 
three professors, the president not included ; he left it with 
eight. He found it with scarcely a hundred students ; he left 
it with more than two hundred. He found it with its courses 
of study quite elementary and limited ; he left it with these 
courses greatly enlarged and extended. He found it without 
either a library or a philosophical apparatus deserving the 
name, and without buildings for their accommodation 5 he left 
it well cared for in respect to all these essential endowments of 
an institution of learning. 

In effecting these great changes. Dr. Wayland had the ben- 
efit of able and efficient coadjutors. The scholarly Elton, who, 
at the time of his entering upon his presidential duties, was 
abroad, gathering inspiration beneath the shadow of the Par- 
thenon and among the columns of the Forum, returned home 
soon afterwards to commence his courses of instruction enriched 
from the garnered stores of ancient learning. The genial and 
classic Goddard, whose appointment to a professor's chair was 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 199 

of a somewhat earlier date, rendered to the University, during 
the period of his connection with it, most valuable services. By 
infusing something of his own exquisite taste and love of ele- 
gant letters into the minds of undergraduates, as well as by the 
models of a graceful and finished style which he set before 
them, he greatly elevated the standard of excellence in compo- 
sition, and gave to rhetorical training, as a part of a liberal edu- 
cation, that deserved prominence in the college course Avhich it 
has ever since held. Of almost equal value was the sound prac- 
tical sense which he brought to every question of discipline and 
povernment. To the aid of his rare wisdom in the counsels of 

o 

the faculty. Dr. Wayland was always prompt to acknowledge 
his large indebtedness. And after the retirement of Professor 
Goddard from the duties of instruction, he upon whom the 
mantle of seniority fell, to whom I owe so much, to whom a 
whole generation of pupils owes so much, as an able and faith- 
ful teacher and a Avise counselor and friend, — would that I 
might speak of him as my heart prompts ; but such words are 
not permitted now ; they would seem too much like personal 
adulation ; they must be reserved for another, and, I trust, far 
distant occasion, — he upon whom the mantle of seniority so 
worthily fell, the honored and beloved Caswell, for a period of 
nearly thirty years brought to the administration of President 
Wayland his undivided strength and his large influence. Other 
and younger officers of instruction and government cooperated 
in advancing the interests of the institution, if not with equal 
ability, with equal zeal and equal singleness of purpose. One 
of these, too early withdrawn from academic labors — much too 
early for his associates and for the interests of the University 
— by the attractions of " learned leisure " and the " still air of 



200 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

delightful studies" rendered an uninterrupted service of more 
than a quarter of a century, whose value and importance can 
hardly be estimated too highly. A pupil of President Way- 
land, and recipient of the choicest benefits of his unequaled 
training, growing from youth up to ripe manhood under his im- 
mediate eye and influence, possessing many of the rare qualities 
which fitted him so preeminently for the instructor's office, in- 
spired by the same ardor and the same spirit of untiring and 
unsparing devotion to the high duties imposed by it, he made 
his mark upon the successive classes as they passed under him, 
beside the ever - during impressions received from the great 
master. 

Aid of a different kind, but no less important, came from 
without. Soon after the accession of Dr. Wayland to the pres^ 
idency, a spirit of greater liberality began to prevail in the 
community, and juster ideas were entertained of the claims of 
institutions of learning upon the benefactions of the citizens. 
As a consequence of this, contributions, some of them large in 
amount, flowed from time to time into the treasury. Buildings, 
the need of which had long been felt, were erected. New and 
improved apparatus was provided. Additional professors were 
appointed, and the courses and means of instruction in nearly 
every department were greatly enlarged. The names of Brown 
and Ives, ever memorable in the history of the University, recall 
a succession of benefits and services, transcending in value even 
the munificent endowments with which they are indissolubly 
associated. To the wise and thoughtful care, to the almost pa- 
rental interest and affection, with which the bearers of these 
honored names have ever watched over the institution, provid- 
ing often from their own private resources for its more pressing 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 201 

wants, and encouraging constantly by their sympathies all who 
were laboring for it, is to be ascribed, in no small degree, its 
measure of jn-osperity and success. 

Reference to these important and cooperative agencies was 
demanded by the truth of history. They are not to be consid- 
ered as detracting at all from the claims of President Wayland. 
Clustering about his administration, they confer upon it addi- 
tional lustre. No man can be great nor can accomplish anything 
great alone. It is in that superior wisdom, and that ascendency 
and force of character, which enable the master sj)irits of the 
race to impress themselves upon their age, — to mould and 
shape the minds of other men, and to draw them into their own 
lines of thought and action, — that we recognize the highest 
form of power. 

It had long been the desire of President Wayland to make 
the advantages of the college more generally available, and es- 
pecially to adapt its courses in a greater degree to the wants of 
the manufacturing and mercantile classes. Such a change in 
our educational system, he thought, was demanded by the in- 
creasing numbers and growing importance and influence of 
these classes. It was also demanded by the character and cir- 
cumstances of our country, whose material developments were 
destined to be magnificent beyond anything which the world 
had ever seen. He thought it the duty of colleges, as the 
guardians and dispensers of the benefactions intrusted to them 
for the o^ood of the communitv, to heed this demand of the 
times, and make the changes necessary for meeting it. Unless 
they did so, they would lose their hold upon the public, and 
fail to accomplish, in full measure, the beneficent ends for vv'hich 
they were founded. He also ventured to imagine that knowl- 



202 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

edge having practical applications might be made as valuable 
a means of culture as studies lying more remote from human 
interests, and recommended especially by what has been denom- 
inated their " glorious inutility." 

These views commending themselves to the corporation and 
friends of the college generally, an effort was made in 1850 to 
provide the means necessary for their adoption. Through the 
liberality and public spirit of the citizens, one hundred and 
twenty-five thousand dollars were raised and paid into the treas- 
ury. This sum, though highly honorable to the donors, was 
quite insufficient for the institution of independent courses of 
instruction, with separate classes, on the extended plan contem- 
plated. The best that could be done was to substitute for these 
inter-dependent courses, with classes more or less mixed. Such 
an organization of the University, though not free from objec- 
tions, would have the advantage of throwing it open most 
widely to the public. It was accordingly adopted. The change 
was almost immediately followed by a large increase in the num- 
ber of students. The attendance upon some of the courses was 
nearly doubled. Many who had previously been excluded from 
the benefit of an academic training gladly embraced the oppor- 
tunity now offered for obtaining it. An unusually large pro- 
portion of these were young men of ability and character, who 
have since risen to distinction in their several avocations. But 
notwithstanding this apparent and real success of the new sys- 
tem, as the altered arrangements were termed, I do not think 
that the expectations of President Wayland were fully realized. 
This was owing mainly to defects of organization which the 
command of larger means could alone have remedied. The 
fundamental idea was just and important. The want felt and 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 203 

indicated was a real one. It has since been recognized by the 
other colleges of the country, a large number of which have 
made provision in one form or other for supplying it. In a 
neighboring state, two institutions — both largely endowed, and 
embracing numerous departments of instruction — have just 
been established for the sole purpose of furnishing a suitable 
education and training to the industrial and commercial classes. 
The recent examples of a noble munificence by several of our 
wealthy and honored citizens afford ground for the hope that, 
under more favorable conditions, the broad and catholic design 
of President Wayland may yet be carried out among us on a 
plan even more extended and comprehensive than he in his most 
ardent moments dared to conceive ; that our neighbors of Mas- 
sachusetts and Connecticut will not for a long time be permitted 
to appropriate to themselves the exclusive benefit of ideas orig- 
inated here, and finding in our compact communities of highly 
intelligent manufacturers and merchants so appropriate a field 
for their application. 

In the summer of 1855, wishing to devote himself more ex- 
clusively to the pursuit of literature and to labors of benev- 
olence, Dr. Wayland retired from the University over which he 
had so long and so ably presided. Sol occidet ; sed nulla nox 
succedet. 

We should form but an inadequate idea of the public services 
of our venerated friend and instructor, if we omitted to con- 
sider what he did for the city of Providence and the State of 
Rhode Island. Had he been a native born son, he could not 
have identified himself more perfectly with all their interests. 
Ancestral associations from the time of RoQfer Williams down- 
wards could have added nothing to his pride in their fair fame. 



204 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

When he first came to Providence, it was just passing from the 
dimensions of a thriving town to the larger proportions of a 
wealthy and prosperous city. While it was in this transition 
state so favorable to the reception of formative influences, he 
threw himself without reserve into its institutions, educational, 
benevolent, and religious. In his wise care and forethought 
many of these had their origin, while all were moulded to a 
greater or less extent under the influence of his efforts and 
counsels. In every enterprise of public spirit, in every plan for 
social improvement, in every effort at moral reform, in every 
labor for ameliorating the condition of the unfortunate, from 
whatever cause, the citizens habitually looked to him as their 
leader. On all occasions of public interest, it was his views that 
were most sought ; it was the opinions expressed by him that 
had the greatest influence. 

The charities of the city and state, the humbler as well as 
the nobler, found in him not only an earnest advocate, but, in 
proportion to his means, a most liberal contributor. To some 
of the more important of these he gave largely of his time. 
He was a trustee and frequent visitor of the Butler Asylum for 
the Insane, from its foundation down to near the close of his 
life. He was for many years one of the inspectors of the State 
Prison. At his suggestion and through his influence, mainly, 
important changes were introduced, which greatly improved the 
condition, both physical and moral, of its inmates. From a 
mere place of confinement, it was converted into a well-ordered 
disciplinary institution. Previously its maintenance had been a 
heavy expense to the State. It now became, through its work- 
shops, a source of no inconsiderable revenue. During a large 
part of the last twenty years of his life, he conducted every week 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 205 

a Bible-class composed of convicts. The spectacle presented was 
most impressive, one which angels might desire to look upon, 
as with heart full of love to God and man, and thought intent 
on serving one and doing good to the other, he took his way on 
the quiet Sabbath morning towards yonder prison, to seek there 
the outcasts from society, the children of shame and sin and 
crime, to gather them around him, and to tell them in language 
of indescribable simplicity and tenderness of a Saviour who 
loves them and who has died for them ; of an atonement so 
large and so free that each one of them, however guilty, may 
have pardon and cleansing ; to lift them, by his broad overflow- 
ing sympathies, from their sense of forsakenness and isolation ; 
to kindle repentings within them ; to awaken anew their moral 
affections ; and to restore their broken relations to humanity, 
to God, and to Heaven. He may hav6 done many things of 
which the world will think more and longer, but his great life 
offers nothing surpassing in moral grandeur these almost di- 
vine labors. 

The poor everywhere found in Dr. Wayland a friend and 
helper. He was known to a very large number of this class 
through his private benefactions. He was continually sought 
by persons of all classes for his advice, his counsel, and his 
sympathy. He probably held more numerous personal relations 
than any other man in the. city. Every one of these he made 
the channel of some species of benefit. The nobleness of his 
nature was manifested no less strikingly in the ordinary walks 
of daily life, than in the more prominent and public situations 
to which he was called. In heroic and self-denying labors, in 
unceasing care and thought for the public good, in largeness of 
views and in breadth of interests and sympathy, in weight of 



206 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

character and influence, in intellectual resources and power, and 
in all the elements of moral greatness, he was by universal con- 
sent the foremost citizen of Rhode Island. JSfec viget qiiic- 
qiiam, simile aut secundum,. 

A few months before his death, an occasion arose for a 
touching exhibition of the respect in which he was held by the 
whole community. The country had in an instant been plunged 
from the height of joy into the deepest mourning. Its honored 
and beloved chief magistrate, at the moment when he was most 
honored and most beloved,, had fallen by parricidal hand. The 
greatness of the loss, the enormity of the crime, and the terri- 
ble suddenness of the blow, bewildered thought and paralyzed 
speech. It seemed as if Providence, which had just vouchsafed 
so great blessings, was, from some inscrutable cause, withdraw- 
ing its protective care. In this hour of darkness, to whom 
should the citizens go but to him who had so often instructed 
and guided them ? As evening draws on, they gather from all 
quarters, and with one common impulse turn their steps east- 
ward. Beneath a weeping sky, the long dark column winds 
its way over the hill and into the valley. As it moves onward, 
the wailings of the dirge and the measured tread are the only 
sounds which fall upon the still air. Having reached the resi- 
dence of President Wayland, it pours itself in a dense throng 
around a slightly raised platform in front of it. Presently he 
appears, to address for the last time, as it proves, his assembled 
fellow-citizens. It is the same noble presence that many there 
had in years long gone by gazed upon with such pride and ad- 
miration from seats in the old chapel. It is the same voice 
whose eloquence then so inflamed them, and stirred their young 
bosoms to such a tumult of passion. The speaker is the same \ 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 207 

the audience is the same. But how changed both ! and how al- 
tered the circumstances ! That hair playing in the breeze has 
been whitened by the snows of seventy winters. That venera- 
ble form is pressed by their accumulated weight. The glorious 
intellectual power which sat upon those features is veiled be- 
neath the softer lines of moral grace and beauty. It is not now 
the Athenian orator, but one of the old prophets, from whose 
touched lips flow forth the teachings of inspired wisdom. The 
dead first claims his thought. He recounts most appreciatively 
his great services, and dwells with loving eulogy upon his un- 
swerving patriotism and his high civic virtues. Next the duties 
of the living and the lessons of the hour occupy attention. 
Then come words of devout thanksgiving, of holy trust, of sub- 
lime faith, uttered as he only ever uttered them. They fall 
upon that waiting assembly like a blessed benediction, assuaging 
grief, dispelling gloom, and kindling worship in every bosom. 
God is no longer at a distance, but all around and within them. 
They go away strengthened and comforted. 

Notwithstanding the multiplicity of his labors. President 
Wayland found leisure for much reading, I have known few 
men who would absorb the contents of a book in so brief a 
space of time. Turning over its pages, he took in at a glance 
their import and meaning ; and so tenacious was his memory, 
that what he had thus rapidly gathered he rarely if ever forgot. 
In his selection of books, he was determined more by what in- 
terested him, than by any deliberately formed plan of study. 
As his interests were broad, his reading embraced an unusually 
large variety of subjects. Travels, biographies, history, science, 
art, and literature furnished the ample materials from which 
his mind, by a sort of elective affinity, amassed its wealth of 
knowledge. 



208 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

As might be expected, from the manner in which they were 
made, his acquisitions were characterized rather by breadth and 
comprehension than by minute accuracy of detail or systematic 
thoroughness. He was not a learned man in the proper sense 
of that term. There was perhaps no subject which others had 
not studied more exhaustively than he. But the field which he 
had explored was wide, and his gatherings from it were large. 
It has not been my fortune to become acquainted with any man 
who had, stored away in a capacious memory, more that one 
would desire to know, or less, I may add, that was not worth 
knowing. 

Another consequence of his habit of varied and somewhat 
discursive reading was the absence of any controlling order or 
system in his acquisitions. The separate facts, instead of being 
connected by formal relations, lay in his mind in associations 
determined very much by his own individual tastes, interests, 
and habits of thought. It was this subjective grouping, this 
mental assimilation of the materials of his knowledge, that im- 
parted to it such vitality, and made it not so much a possession 
as a part of himself, — which gave to his ideas on the most or- 
dinary subjects the freshness and force of originality. 

In early life he was a diligent student of Johnson. The vig- 
orous thought, stately periods, and brilliant antitheses of the 
great English moralist awakened his youthful admiration, and 
exerted a marked influence upon his style. Later both his taste 
and his manner of writing became more simple. At all periods 
of his life the Bible was his constant companion. From that 
he drew inspiration. Through that he entered into a deeper 
knowledge of the character of God, and the nature of man. 
Daily and hourly he drank in wisdom from it. After Shake- 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 209 

speare, Milton and Cowper were his favorite poets. Of the 
writers of romance he preferred Scott. His graphic descriptions 
of scenery and his life-like delineations of character, as well as 
the historic element which pervades his writings, raised them, in 
his estimation, quite above the pages of mere fiction. He had 
a quick sense of the ludicrous, and enjoyed with a keen zest the 
whimsical fancies of Hood, the delicate humor of Irving, and 
the broader comic scenes of Dickens. 

In that struggle which is ever going forward between the re- 
tiring and the coming under the banners of conservatism and 
progress ; in that ceaseless war which, from the very elements of 
human character and condition, must be waged in one form or 
another between the past and the future, on the battle-ground 
of the present. Dr. Wayland was always found, no less in his 
later than in his earlier years, in the advance of the party of 
progress. No man had a sublimer faith in the destinies of the 
race. No one, in anticipating those destinies, clothed them in 
the drapery of a more gorgeous imagination. The failures of 
the past could not shake his confidence in the future. From 
the mournful teachings of history even, he gathered an inner 
lesson of encouragement and hope. At no time had anything 
been really lost. The best forms of civilization which the world 
had seen had indeed fallen into decay, or yielded themselves a 
prey to violence ; but out of their ruins had emerged new civ- 
ilizations embodying all the best elements of the old, together 
with some higher principle which in them was wanting. The 
thread of progress, which for a time seemed broken and turned 
backwards, reappears to guide our steps anew through the his- 
toric labyrinth. 

It was not, however, from the prophecies of the past, nor 

14 



210 ^ DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

from the tendencies of the present, that he chiefly derived his 
hopes of the race. Neither was it from man's intellectual en- 
dowments, however exalted, nor from the magnificent attend- 
ance of material agents and forces which stand ever ready to do 
his bidding. Nor yet was it from his unaided moral nature. 
This was too weak to hear the strain to which it was necessarily 
subjected. It succumbed under pressure. Through all time 
its failure had been most lamentable — the fruitful source alike 
of individual and national disaster and ruin. 

It was only in the moral nature of man supplemented by the 
new forces imported into it by Christianity that he found as- 
sured ground for faith in his continued progress. Upon this 
turned, as he believed, the destinies of the race, both in this 
world and in the world to come. Hence his unceasing labors in 
all ways and by all means, in season and out of season, amid 
the most varied public services and under the pressure of con- 
stant professional duty, — labors continued without intermission 
or remission through a whole lifetime, for spreading a knowl- 
edge of the Gospel, and bringing men in heart and in life 
under the sway of its principles. Speaking of Christianity as 
the only pillar upon which his hopes for himself and for his 
race rested, he once said, with great earnestness, " Any doubt 
concerning that would be to me a greater calamity than the 
sinking; of a continent." 

Of the numerous works given by President Wayland to the 
public, two are biographical and one is controversial. The re- 
mainder are educational, didactic, and religious. The latter are 
all eminently practical in their aims. I am unable to recall a 
single question, of a purely speculative character, discussed or 
even formally stated in them. Important truths pertaining to 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 211 

man's higher interests, whether revealed in consciousness, or 
made known by the teachings of inspiration, or resting upon 
the broader basis of human experience, are unfolded, illustrated, 
and enforced. Rarely is much time given to the discussion of 
principles. These in ethics and for the most part in meta- 
physics approximate so closely to intuitions, that little is needed 
beyond their exact and clear statement. Truths which lie so 
remote from the common sense of mankind, that they can be 
reached only by long trains of reasoning, will be found practi- 
cally inoperative. The more immediately the doctrines of phi- 
losophy, of morals, and of religion are made to spring from 
that common sense, the stronger will be their hold upon the 
conduct and the life. No one comprehended this fact more 
fully or knew better how to avail himself of it than President 
Wayland. The most extended inference to be found in all his 
writings is covered by his favorite word " hence." To this di- 
rect emergence of his teachings from truths recognized by all, 
is due in no small degree their power over the pojDular mind. 
Occasionally it diminishes somewhat their interest by imparting 
to them a too elementary character. 

In the leading tenets of his intellectual philosophy he con- 
forms most nearly to the doctrines of Stewart and Reid. Al- 
though he had evidently perused with great care the philosoph- 
ical writings of Sir William Hamilton, and lost no opportunity 
of testifying the profoundest admiration for his genius, we find 
in his work fewer traces of the peculiar views of the latter than 
might have been expected. On neither perception nor original 
suggestion does he follow his doubtful teachings. In truth, 
however well fitted for understanding and appreciating one an- 
other, the American President and the great Scottish Professor 



212 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

possessed minds cast in different moulds, and characterized by 
different tendencies. In one, the moral predominated over the 
intellectual ; in the other, the intellectual over the moral. One 
sought truth from a conviction of its inestimable value ; the 
other rather for the pleasure of the excitement attending the 
pursuit. " Fruit " was the motto of one ; " activity " and 
" life " were the watchwords of the other. Both conceive with 
great strength and vividness. Both hold their conceptions with 
a steadiness that never wavers. Both mark with unerring pre- 
cision their contents. Both know equally well how to draw 
them from their several momenta. If the philosophical percep- 
tions of Sir William are more varied and profound, those of Dr. 
Wayland are instinct with a deeper and more living earnest- 
ness. If the discriminations of the former are sharper and more 
penetrating, those of the latter follow with a finer sense the nat- 
ural cleavages of thought. If the former deals in larger, bolder 
generalizations, the latter conducts us to truths of greater im- 
portance — of more immediate and practical value.^ 

I do not think that processes of pure and simple ratiocination 
had great attraction for Dr. Wayland. It was not so much 
that they tasked too severely the logical faculty, as because they 
held in restraint the imagination, with him unusually active, and 
offered nothing that addressed the moral and sesthetic sensibili- 
ties, forming so large and important a part of his nature. The 
habit of his mind was inductive rather than deductive. Analy- 
sis was the instrument which he chiefly used in the search for 
truth, and illustration the means habitually employed by him 
in conveying it to others. 

^ The above paragraph is substantially from an article by the author in the North 
American Review, July, 1855. 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 213 

If mere argument was little to his taste, still less so was con- 
troversy, whatever the subject or with whatever of chivalrous 
courtesy it might be conducted. With Milton he preferred to 
contemplate " the bright countenance of truth " rather than to 
meet and battle with error. When, however, he consented to 
enter the lists, he proved no mean combatant. His great 
strength and his advantages of stature more than compensated 
for any want of practice or skill in the use of weapons. If he 
was not always sufficiently on his guard, if he sometimes in- 
cautiously opened himself to an unexj)ected thrust from a more 
agile foe, the well-wrought mail of principles with which he was 
panoplied saved hini from any serious injury. If he did not 
insert the keen blade of an Ajax into the joints of his antag- 
onist's armor, he crashed in that armor by the Titan-like blows 
which he dealt upon it. But these knightly passages-at-arms 
were foreign to his inclination and habits, and he rarely allowed 
himself to be drawn into them. 

The intellectual processes disclosed in his writings are genuine 
and thorough. They are characterized by breadth rather than 
subtlety. His words, always well chosen, are woven into periods 
which render with scrupulous fidehty his meaning. His para- 
graphs move steadily forward. There is no pause, no tergiver- 
sation, but constant progress in the thought. Each sentence 
goes with the directness of an arrow to its mark ; and when the 
exposition of the law or the discussion of the topic is finished, 
there is left on the mind an impression of singular completeness. 
Not a word employed could have been spared ; not another 
word was needed. Perspicuity is the most striking quality of 
his style. His ideas, always clear and well defined, clothe them- 
selves in language having the transparency of crystal. The 



214 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

thought is self-luminous and the expression is irradiated by its 
light. This is true of his plainest and most ordinary writing. 
When he rises above the merely didactic, when he approaches 
the higher themes of human welfare and destiny, when with 
powers fully aroused he pours around his subject the boundless 
wealth of an exuberant imagination, his periods kindle and blaze 
with surpassing splendor. No mere phosphorescent glow then 
marks the track of his thought. It is the lightning's flash, in- 
stantly illuminating every object and flooding the whole air with 
its dazzling brightness. There are passages in his writings which 
for brilliancy are hardly surpassed by anything in the language. 
President Wayland possessed an emotional nature of great 
depth and richness. No man was more profoundly stirred by 
the forms of material grandeur presented in the outward uni- 
verse. No bosom glowed with a more generous admiration of 
high intellectual power, or kindled with a livelier enthusiasm 
at the exhibition of lofty virtue. No soul bowed in deeper rev- 
erence before God, or lifted itself more adoringly to the contem- 
plation of His being and attributes. No heart was more easily 
moved to sympathy or responded more warmly to the claims of 
charity, of friendship, and of country. He had all the affections 
and impulses of a noble nature. He loved justice and right 
and truth, and hated and despised their opposites. In propor- 
tion to his admiration of disinterestedness and generosity was 
his loathing of selfishness, the meanness of it affecting him 
even more than the sin. His detestation of injustice and wrong 
had the strength of a passion. Systematic and banded oppres- 
sion of the weak by the strong awakened in him an intense and 
burning indignation, to which, though a master of the language 
of emotion, he could give but feeble expression. 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 215 

It was this depth and fervor of feeling that fitted him so emi- 
nently for the treatment of moral themes and made his tributes 
to virtue so inspiring, and his denunciations of vice so withering 
and terrible. It was this which gave such power to his exhorta- 
tions, his appeals, his rebukes, and his warnings. It was feeling 
welling up from its deep sources that quickened his intellectual 
faculties into their finest action, which put his mind on wing 
and imparted to it, in its higher flights, such breadth and clear- 
ness of vision, which kindled to its brightest effulgence his 
imagination, and inspired his loftiest strains of eloquence. 

This warmth of temperament, while it was the source of so 
much that was generous in character, and while it contributed 
so largely to his power and influence, occasionally betrayed him 
into hasty judgments which were not always just towards others. 
When, however, he discovered the wrong, though it were in 
thought only, he was most prompt in reparation. The same 
ardor also sometimes showed itself in too impetuous action. In 
carrying out a principle with whose importance he had become 
impressed, he was liable not to keep sufficiently in view its in- 
tersections by other general truths of equal moment. Gravity 
is coextensive with the material universe. In our world it is 
met at innumerable points by other coordinate forces which 
modify indefinitely its manifestations. 

Although by no means a stranger to the lighter forms of 
emotion usually termed sentiment, these did not, like the deeper 
pulses of moral feeling, pervade and control his whole nature. 
They were not the atmosphere in which he lived and moved and 
had his being. When under their influence, no one could give 
them more graceful expression. The extreme delicacy of the 
language in which he breathes forth sentiment in some of his 



216 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

more touching tributes to friendship and exalted worth, makes 
us almost regret that these tender effusions do not more fre- 
quently grace his pages. As an example, I would instance 
his discourse on the life and character of the Hon. Nicholas 
Brown, the introductory portion of which contains passages of 
great pathos and beauty ; also his address to Dr. Nott, of Union 
College, on the fiftieth anniversary of his presidency, in which 
he pays, in accents so moving, the grateful homage of a pupil 
to a beloved and venerated instructor, closing with those almost 
daring words, which, if they ever had fitting application among 
the sons of men, found it in him who, in the fullness of his 
heart, so pathetically uttered them : " Heaven will account itself 
richer as it opens its pearly gates to welcome thy approach ; but 
where shall those who survive find anything left on earth that 
resembles thee ? " 

There is a force in the natural world which has received the 
designation of catalytic. It is sometimes called the power of 
presence. Bodies in which it resides have the marvellous prop- 
erty of transmuting other bodies by mere contact into their like- 
ness. The force is too subtile for analysis, and has hitherto 
defied all attempts at explanation. Philosophers have contented 
themselves with simply noting and naming it. The fact has 
its analogy in the moral world. There are men who possess a 
similar power of presence. An influence goes out from them 
equally controlling and alike incapable of analysis or philosoph- 
ical explanation. President Wayland presented a most striking 
example of this. It was felt by all who came near him. His 
power as a speaker and as a teacher depended largely upon it. 
The same utterances might come from others, but how slight, 
comparatively, their effect ! The same truths might be im- 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 217 

pressed by others, but how unlike their moulding influence ! 
The same principles might be inculcated by others, but how dif- 
ferent their transforming power ! Behind the utterances, back 
of the teachings, was a living soul from which proceeded ema- 
nations entirely distinct and separate from ideas and quite inde- 
pendent of language. The subtile influence poured through 
the eye. It streamed from the features. It flowed through the 
voice. Gesture, posture, and form were its silent vehicles. It 
emphasized thought ; it energized expression ; it vitalized ideas. 
It awoke aspiration ; it kindled enthusiasm ; it developed power. 
It was the direct efflux of spiritual energy by which a great na- 
ture transformed other natures, in proportion to their capacities, 
into its own likeness. It is the want of this incommunicable 
power which is most felt by his pupils in the perusal of his 
writings, and which makes them unwilling to admit that he has 
produced anything equal to himself. 

To rare intellectual and moral endowment was united in our 
venerated friend a nature profoundly religious. To this was 
added a temperament of great earnestness, exalted by a certain 
intense realism. Life was to him no holiday. It was full of 
grave interests and high trusts and great responsibilities, with 
issues more momentous than the human mind could conceive. 
The distant and the future, presented through his vivid imagi- 
nation, were as real as the present. God, heaven, the immortal 
life, and death eternal, were something more than vague ideas 
or remote possibilities ; they were great, overshadowing facts ; 
instant and pressing realities. At the market, in places of as- 
sembly, by the wayside, everywhere, he saw men having undying 
souls, which, if not saved through faith in Jesus Christ, must be 
forever lost ; for whose welfare, both here and hereafter, he, in 



218 A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 

proportion to the ability given him, would be held accountable. 
Life under such conditions and with such surroundings could not 
but be earnest. No fanatical elements, however, mingled in it. 
It was free even from Puritanic severity. His nature was a 
healthy one, full of genial and kindly impulses. He was joyous, 
and at times sportive even, but trifling never. In early and mid- 
dle life he was much sought by society, and was the pride of every 
circle in which he moved. His brilliant conversation, his spark- 
ling wit, and his quick repartee made him the charm of the 
dinner table. But these social pleasures he never allowed to 
interfere with life's work. They were only silver facings on the 
garments of duty which he always wore. To meet the approval 
of the great Taskmaster, in whose eye he ever acted, was his 
constant endeavor. His motives were drawn from the unseen 
world. To that his aspirations continually tended. Of that, as 
years advanced, he became more and more a denizen, so that 
when the time of his departure came, it seemed but a slight 
removal. 

In estimating the permanent results of President Wayland's 
life, we should consider, I think, not merely or principally his 
writings, important and valuable as these are. We should look 
rather to the characters which he moulded, and to the moral 
and religious forces which he set in action. These, as Avell as 
the productions of his pen, still live, and will continue to live. 
Where in all the land can be found a place in which to-day he 
is not working, directly or indirectly, through those whose minds 
he formed and inspired ? In how many halls of learning is he 
now giving instruction ! from how many pulpits holding forth 
the word of life ! on how many benches dispensing justice ! at 
how many bars defending the rights of citizens ! In how many 



A DISCOURSE ON FRANCIS WAYLAND. 219 

pagan lands is he imparting to minds darkened by superstition 
and idolatry a knowledge of the only true God, and of the way 
of salvation through Jesus Christ ! Nor will his influence ter- 
minate with the lives of those who were its immediate recipients. 
Moral forces never die. By a law of their nature they perpet- 
uate and extend and multiply themselves indefinitely. When 
the marble in yonder hall, to which, through your thoughtful- 
ness, those noble features have been committed, shall have 
crumbled, and the unborn generations that will look upon it 
shall have mingled in common dust, the impulses which pro- 
ceeded from him will be still acting in circles of influence ever 
widening and reaching larger and yet larger numbers. 

Friend of our youth, our instructor, exemplar, and guide ! we 
shall see thy face and hear thy voice no more. Thou hast done 
with earth. Its dusty ways are trodden by thee no longer. The 
impenitence and perversity of sinful men have ceased to grieve 
thee. Thou now walkest the streets of the golden city. Angels 
are thine attendants, and the spirits of the just made perfect 
are thy companions. The mysteries which, while here, thou 
didst desire to look into, are resolved. Thou hast opened thine 
eyes upon the beatific vision. The throne of God and of the 
Lamb is before thee. Thou gazest with unstricken sight ujDon 
the effulgent, unutterable Glory. We wait on earth yet a little, 
and then will foUow thee. 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 



Few things would at first view seem to be more unlike, or in 
less danger of being confounded, than knowledge and belief ; 
and yet they are so blended in consciousness, and, moreover, in 
some of their forms approximate one another so closely in char- 
acter, that to draw the line of demarkation between them and 
determine their respective values as grounds of action is no 
easy task. It is one, however, that should be undertaken. The 
times demand it. In these days of vaunted science, when men 
are seeking to depose faith in the interest of positivism, which 
they would place on her throne, it behooves the friends of truth 
to examine the claims of the new favorite ; to see whether all 
that we have been accustomed to deem holy and sacred must be 
buried with the dead past, or whether there be not something 
still remaining to which our reverence and affection may cling ; 
whether the highest interest and true glory of man must hence- 
forward be sought in the progress of the arts and triumphs of 
electricity and steam, or whether virtue, God, heaven, and the 
immortal life may not after all be more than empty words ; 
whether, to borrow an illustration from one of the leaders of 
this school, everything lying beyond the sphere of the senses is 
but " lunar politics," of which we know nothing and can know 
nothing, and concerning which it is a waste of time to specu- 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 221 

late, or whether the realm thus excluded from thought be not 
the true home of the soul, where alone it finds free scope for 
the exercise of all its faculties ; whether we shall adopt the ad- 
vice of the great English skeptic quoted by the same authority 
with fullest indorsement, who says, " If we take in hand any 
volume of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance, let us 
ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity 
or number ? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning 
concerning matters of fact or existence ? No. Commit it then 
to the flames ; for it contains nothing but sophistry and illu- 
sion ; " or whether we shall look especially to these repudiated 
sources for light on the problems of duty and destiny, which 
press upon us and have ever pressed upon the race for solution. 
To such an examination and inquiry we invite the attention of 
the reader. We would that we came to it with larger prepara- 
tion and a clearer sight; but the result of such thought as we 
have been able to bestow we offer, relying upon the importance 
of the subject to justify, however imperfectly successful, our en- 
deavor. 

We think it will be seen, on a little reflection, that positive 
knowledge is limited to our own mental states ; to the thoughts, 
purposes, feelings, desires, and volitions of which we are con- 
scious. We know these absolutely. They are precisely what 
we conceive them to be. No skeptic ever doubted concerning 
them. Even Hume, although he questioned everything else, 
admitted the reality of his own mental experiences. For these 
he had the best of vouchers, consciousness. All besides which 
men call knowledore lacked this voucher. And here we think 
he was right. We have no power of direct cognition beyond 
ourselves. Between the world Avithin and the world without, or, 



222 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

in metaphysical phrase, the me and the not me, is a mighty 
chasm, spanned only by the bridge of faith. If we refuse to 
trust ourselves to this, we must remain forever cut off and iso- 
lated from the rest of the universe. 

We are aware that Sir William Hamilton has attempted to 
establish a different doctrine. He has sought to make external 
existences the subjects of direct knowledge by bringing them 
within the field of consciousness. Dispensing with faith's 
bridge, he has courageously undertaken to throw up a causeway 
along which we may pass to the outward world on solid ground. 
Dr. Noah Porter, following in his footsteps, has striven to add 
strength and completeness to the work. Both, however, must, 
we think, be admitted to have signally failed in their endeavors. 
The yawning gulf will not be filled. We enter upon their la- 
boriously raised way. For a time our progress seems secure. 
At length the ground gives way beneath our feet, and we are 
lost in the fathomless depths below. For a knowledge of aught 
without ourselves, we are dependent upon the senses. For the 
truthfulness of these, our only guaranty is the character of Him 
who formed them. The natural and the supernatural, so far as 
made known, are alike revelations from God, reaching us indeed 
through different channels, but resting their claim to reception 
equally on our faith in Him. 

H we pass from the phenomenal to the real, from the out- 
ward form and sensible properties of bodies to their indwelling 
powers, from the regulated succession of events in the world 
around us to the underlying causes by which the orderly move- 
ment is determined, we find ourselves still further removed from 
the domain of knowledge and still further advanced in the en- 
compassing realm of belief. Of the essences of things we 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 223 

know and can know nothing. God has denied us the faculties 
necessary for their apprehension. He has so constituted us, 
however, that by a hiw of our intellectual being we are com- 
pelled to believe in their existence. We are as sure of it as if 
they were palpable to the senses, and could be felt and handled. 
Of the material forces evolvinfj' the chanofes of the outward 
world we have no knowledge. By careful and long continued 
observations we may indeed ascertain the order and conditions 
of their manifestations. But to grasp the forces themselves ex- 
ceeds our utmost endeavor. They are too subtle for apprehen- 
sion. They elude every attempt to lay hold of them. We have 
no doubt, however, as to their existence ; we are as certain of it 
as we are of our own existence. A belief imposed by the laws 
of our mental structure is ground for as perfect assurance as 
knowledge. We act as confidently upon it in the ordinary af- 
fairs of life. It is, moreover, on such beliefs that all philoso- 
phy must rest to afford any hope of permanence. The folly 
of seeking for it a basis in positive knowledge the experience 
of the last thirty centuries has abundantly demonstrated. The 
history of philosophy during that period has been a history of 
failures ; not, as Mr. Lewes would have us suppose, because 
philosophy is impossible, but because of the mistakes of the 
builders. Rejecting with one accord faith as its foundation and 
chief corner-stone, they have reared its successive structures on 
the shifting sands of opinion. Hence their instability. How- 
ever fair the proportions in which they may have arisen, or 
whatever appearance of strength and solidity they may have as- 
sumed, for want of adequate support, they have, one after an- 
other, tumbled into ruins. 

In this connection we beg to call attention to what we deem 



224 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

another grave error of Sir William Hamilton. We allude to 
his derivation of the causal judgment. Instead of recognizing 
it as a direct affirmation of the reason, an immediate revelation 
of the intelligence, he traces it to a source which deprives it of 
all authority, a source in the mind's impotence. We believe 
that every change must be produced by some cause, not from 
any apprehended necessity in the case, but from our inability to 
conceive the contrary ; an inability which, for aught we know, 
may arise solely from the limitation of our faculties. However 
far from intending it, he thus saps the foundation alike of phi- 
losophy and religion, and opens wide the door for the entrance 
of atheism. 

If we extend further our observations in the world around us, 
we discover evidences, not merely of power, but of power under 
the direction of intelligence. The elementary particles of mat- 
ter do not exist in a state of isolation, having each its own sepa- 
rate and distinct sphere of action. On the contrary, they are 
united into groups, and these groups are again united into 
larger groups, and these larger groups are so conjoined as to 
form systems ; and these systems constitute parts of larger sys- 
tems, and these of yet larger, from a molecule of water up to 
the sidereal universe. Each one of these innumerable systems, 
whatever its magnitude or degree of complexity, we see working 
out, through the coordinated and harmonious action of its sev- 
eral parts, results worthy from their importance to be the ob- 
jects of intelligent effort. What then is the necessary infer- 
ence ? That each one of these systems is the work of mind ; 
that it was devised and constructed for the purposes which we 
see accomplished by it. This is absolutely demanded by the 
causal judgment. Power alone will not explain the facts. It 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 225 

must have been associated with intelligence ; and as these sys- 
tems have interdependencies innumerable, and together consti- 
tute one single whole, they must be the work of one and the 
same intelligence. There is no escape from this conclusion, un- 
less we throw away one of the clearest intuitions of our nature, 
and abandon all reasoning on the subject. Nebular hyj^otheses 
and theories of development are of no avail in lessening the 
force of the argument. If the design was not in the oak, it 
was in the acorn. If it was not in the elaborately organized 
man, it was in the germ from which he sprung. If it was not 
in the completed earth, it was in the vaporous matter out of 
which the earth in process of time grew. Away Avitli the sense- 
less babble about star dust, and protoplasm, and laws of devel- 
opment, and natural selection. Concede to these hypotheses, 
which they at best are, whatever of probability may be claimed 
for them, they do not advance us a single step in solving the 
problem of creation. They have no more power for this than 
Lucretius' fortuitous concourse of atoms, or Plato's archetypal 
ideas, or the numbers of Pythagoras, or the mundane Qgg of 
the Egyptian mythology. Should they ever be placed on a suf- 
ficiently broad basis of induction to entitle them to be regarded 
as facts and laws, they will then be only outgrowths of an orig- 
inal constitution of things which design alone can explain. 
That the framers of these hypotheses should press them beyond 
their proper limits is not remarkable. That others of atheisti- 
cal tendencies should make use of them for strengthening their 
faith is equally natural. But that men of the highest intellec- 
tual endowments, who have spent their whole lives in the study 
of nature, should from lack of moral vision be insensible to the 
light of mind everywhere shining through it, is passing strange. 

15 



226 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

How pitiable to see these blind Titans, instead of walking freely 
abroad amid the glories of a divinely-formed and God-illumined 
world which was their birthright, now grinding, Samson-like, in 
the mill of inexorable, unvarying law, and now struggling to 
wrench away the pillars of the moral firmament, that they may 
bury themselves and all humanity beneath the ruins ! 

The innumerable arrangements and adaptations in nature 
which disclose intelligence afford at the same time equal proof 
of benevolence. The contrivance everywhere looks, either im- 
mediately or remotely, to the welfare of sentient beings. What- 
ever be its range or comprehension, whether it embrace in its 
provisions the entire animal creation or be limited to a single 
species, ministry to happiness is its manifest purpose. Evil ap- 
pears in the world only as incidental to the good. It is not like 
the latter, the object of contrivance and design. No provisions 
are found looking to it as an end. On the contrary, we meet, in 
numerous instances, with supplementary contrivances, intended 
solely for its counteraction. Why the Omnipotent One should 
resort to the use of means for the attainment of ends, why He 
does not directly will whatever He desires, is not for us to in- 
quire. A solution of that problem can come only from the 
depths of the divine nature. We may, however, observe that it 
is through this mode of working that He has made known to us 
His existence and attributes. It is also through this mode of 
working that He has enabled us to become co-workers with Him. 
But the plan of constituting a few general agents, and of em- 
ploying them through special devices for the attainment of par- 
ticular ends, having been adopted, there was a necessary com- 
mittal to all which the plan involved. The incidental evil could 
not be separated from the purposed good. Were the former 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 227 

many times greater than we find it, standing in the relation 
which it does to the latter, it would not weigh a feather against 
the argument from universal nature for the divine benevolence. 

But we tarry too long in this lower realm of belief, which 
lies so close to the domain of knowledge that it scarcely affords 
opportunity for the exercise of faith in its more characteristic 
and distinctive form. Ye believe in God. Ye do well ; the 
devils believe also, and tremble. The existence of an intelligent 
Author of nature, who has ordered all its beneficent arrange- 
ments, is a demand of the causal judgment so imperative that 
only the most extraordinary mental obliquity can resist it. But 
not so with his moral perfections, His truth. His justice. His 
holiness. These rest on a different foundation. We go to ex- 
ternal nature in vain for evidence of them. The depth saith, It 
is not in me ; and the sea saith. It is not with me. The fowl 
of the air saith. It is not in me ; the beast of the field saith. It is 
not in me. The earth, as it hastens on in its appointed course, 
saith, It is not in me. The starry firmament saith, It is not 
in me. The grounds for belief in these higher attributes of 
the Creator, aside from revelation, must be sought in the sen- 
timents and intuitions of the human soul. This having been 
formed by Him, though we do not suppose it to bear his 
image, must, of necessity, reflect his character. 

That God, whose existence and natural perfections are so 
clearly revealed in the outward creation, is true must be re- 
garded as a moral axiom. With infinite resources of power 
and wisdom at command, it is inconceivable that He should 
have recourse to deception for the fulfillment of his purposes. 
The Scriptures everywhere assume the divine veracity, and rest 
their claims to reception solely upon it. Dark indeed must be 



228 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

the soul of him who refuses to accept this fundamental truth. 
It underlies, as we have seen, all our constitutional beliefs, and 
gives to them whatever validity they possess. It is the only 
guaranty for the truthfulness of the senses, the sole ground of 
assurance that life is not a dream, and everything in it illusory. 

That God is just, is another moral axiom. All rightly consti- 
tuted minds at once admit it. So strongly is the conviction im- 
planted that the apparent want of accordance between treatment 
and desert under the government of God in this world has uni- 
versally led to the belief in a future state of existence, in which 
the wrongs of this life will be righted ; in which a righteous 
government, only begun here, will be carried on to completion. 
Doubt concerning the divine justice would argue mental or 
moral obliquity. 

The holiness of God, or his completeness in moral perfections, 
should, we think, be placed on the same basis. We do not ask 
for proof of it. We at once accept it as an indubitable truth. 
" Our whole nature," says Bishop Butler, " leads us to ascribe 
all moral perfections to God, and to deny all imperfection in 
Him ; and this will forever be a practical proof of his moral 
character to such as will consider what a practical proof is, be- 
cause it is the voice of God speaking in us." 

Were further evidence of the divine perfections needed, we 
should find it in the structure of our moral natures. God has 
so constituted us that we approve and honor truth, and despise 
and abhor falsehood. Must we not see in this constitution an 
adumbration of his character? God has so made us that we 
instinctively love justice and right, and hate injustice and wrong. 
Must we not see in these feelings a reflection of his sentiments ? 
Can we suppose Him to have endowed us with a faculty for 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 229 

moral discriminations not made nor recognized by Him ? He 
that formed the eye, shall He not see ? He that planted the 
ear, shall He not hear ? God has made us capable of perceiving 
the beauty of holiness. Has He given us this faculty without 
anything in Himself to call it into exercise ? 

But these intuitive beliefs, thus strengthened by disclosures of 
the divine character in the constitution given us, are confirmed 
by an external revelation attested by miracles, and supported by 
a body of evidence of various kinds, such as can be adduced for 
no other historical fact of like antiquity. This revelation, more- 
over, contains many things additional to the teachings of the 
light within, but so in harmony with these teachings that we 
should be prepared to receive them on testimony less weighty. 
Faith, taking within her embrace the truths of both revelations, 
jealously guards them as her most precious treasures, treasures 
which, unlike all others, grow continually brighter with keeping. 

Between these beliefs in relation to God and human duty and 
destiny, whether immediate or derived, and our moral states and 
habits, there exists, we hardly need say, an intimate connection 
whereby they exert a reciprocal influence upon one another. If 
the beliefs be strong, they will invigorate the moral sentiments, 
and these in turn will prompt to more energetic action. If the 
beliefs be feeble, the moral sentiments will become languid or 
obscured, and lose their power over the life. If, on the other 
hand, the conduct be habitually wrong, it will react on the 
moral sentiments. These become weakened and disordered, 
and faith dies out in the soul. 

From this connection between faith and the moral tempers 
and dispositions from which it springs, it is taken in the Scrij)- 
tures as the evidence and exponent of character. The highest 



230 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

spiritual blessings are promised to it. " He that belie veth on 
me/' that receives with a hearty and loving faith the truths 
which I teach, " hath everlasting life." " He that heareth my 
word and believeth in him that sent me, hath everlasting life, 
and shall not come unto condemnation, but is passed from death 
unto life." 

Having thus rapidly glanced at the domain of knowledge, 
and the realm of faith which lies around it, let us now examine 
them somewhat more in detail, and see what they respectively 
offer us. By such an examination and comparison, we shall be 
able to judge of the boasted superiority of positivism 5 to see 
whether its advantages are such as to justify us in turning our 
backs upon philosophy and religion, and joyfully enrolling our 
names on the list of its votaries. The guerdon promised for 
giving up our most valued possessions in this world, and all that 
we hope for in the next, should not be a slight one. 

Let us first turn to external nature, and see how the teachings 
of this new philosophy enhance its value. Instead of the old- 
fashioned, useless, and cumbrous hypothesis of real existences, 
we have a mere assemblage of appearances, — a phantasmagoria 
on a large scale, in which sun, moon, and stars, earth, oceans, 
mountains, trees, and men, are seen on the magic screen : or a 
moving panorama whose varied figures, whether of larger or 
smaller size, whether singly or in groups, pass in orderly pro- 
cession before us. Back of these appearances there is absolutely 
nothing. They come into existence uncaused ; they continue 
in existence without support ; they go out of existence through 
no agency. Any speculation as to their origin, nature, or pur- 
pose is but dreaming. All that we can rationally do is to ob- 
serve, compare, and classify them. Although the figures pass 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 231 

before us on the painted canvas with the most perfect regularity, 
so that when we have learned the law of their movement, we 
can predict the time and place of the reappearance of each with 
unerring certainty, there is no connection between these figures, 
and no machinery behind them by which the orderly movement 
is determined. Any inquiry concerning the cause of this move- 
ment would be worse than idle ; for it has no cause. The only 
object worthy of rational effort is to ascertain, by sufficiently ex- 
tended observation, the law which governs it, and thus acquire 
the power of prevision. Prevision is the measure and test and 
sole fruit of positive science. He is the greatest philosopher 
who can see farthest in advance the movements of the several 
figures in the panorama ; or, to change the iUustration, who can 
tell what forms will be presented to the eye after the greatest 
number of rotations of the kaleidoscope, or say, in the case of 
Mr. Babbage's calculating engine, what number will be brought 
up at the ten thousandth or ten millionth or ten bilUonth turn 

of the wheel. 

If, in condescension to our weak prejudices, or mental infir- 
mities, if you please, the new philosophy recognize the principle 
of faith to the extent of admitting the reality of external exist- 
ences, it gives us but a dead Nature. No indwelHng spirit ani- 
mates her frame nor breathes its quickening influence through 
her members. No intelligence beams in her countenance. No 
Hght of mind shines through her features. There are, indeed, 
vast masses of matter, —mighty suns and huge and ponder- 
ous planets revolving about them. On one of the smallest of 
these planets are wide oceans and broad continents, and lofty 
mountains and extended plains, presenting accommodations and 
the means of sustenance for the most diversified forms of life. 



232 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

But what o£ this ? The fact is of no significance. It proves 
nothing. It indicates nothing. This apparent array of means 
was not brought into existence for the attainment of any end, 
— was not designed for the accomphshment of any purpose. 
Intelligence had no part in it. It was the mere result of 
chance ; one of the possible issues of an original chaos of 
atoms, every one of whose movements was determined by blind 
laws. Nature, and not God, Nature, herself blind and uncon- 
scious, is the author of all these nicely adjusted arrangements, 
all this furniture of life in the heavens above us, and in the 
earth under us. After countless ages of unconscious struggle, of 
combinations and recombinations, constructions and reconstruc- 
tions innumerable, this grand result was at length attained. 

Let us next turn to the domain of life, and see what the new 
philosophy offers us in this department of the Creator's works. 
May we " not look for its superiority here ? May it not here 
disclose the attractive features that are to win us to its em- 
brace ? Alas ! we are again doomed to disappointment. It is 
here that it especially shows its weakness ; that it darkens coun- 
sel by words without knowledge ; that it repels us alike by the 
hideousness of its portrayals, and the absurdity of its doctrines. 
Nature, after having, by a whole eternity of unconscious strug- 
gles, accidentally effected the organization of our planet, con- 
tinues her blind efforts, and at length, by a chance combination 
of the right elements, gives birth to the first living thing. A 
starting-point is thus secured for a new series of developments. 
From this starting-point life is carried upward, partly by fortu- 
nate accidents rewarding the uninterrupted struggles of nature, 
partly by the conscious and voluntary efforts of the individual 
to adapt himself to new conditions, and partly by natural selec- 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 233 

tion, or the surviving of the fittest. Millions of ages roll away. 
The molluscan, ichthiau, reptilian, and mammalian types are 
successively reached. At length, the persevering efforts of 
unconscious Nature, seconded by favoring influences and happy 
chances, are crowned by the appearance of a quadrumane. Man 
comes next. He is a monkey of larger growth, with cranium 
more developed and extremities more specialized, but still a 
monkey. His parentage is revealed in every feature. His life, 
too, shows it. He is born, and grows up. He eats, he drinks, 
he sleeps, he loves, he hates, he hopes, he fears, he dies. His 
intelligence is greater, owing to the larger size of his brain. 
Hence, he bedecks himself, he builds houses, he plants trees, he 
rides, he dances, he buys, he sells, he gibbers about philosophy, 
and law, and fate, and free will, and foreordination, and evi- 
dences of design, and causes efficient and final, and essences 
material and spiritual. But after thus riding and dancing and 
gibbering through the brief span of his existence, he dies like 
the monkey, and like the monkey transfers the life which he 
had received from others to the worms that feed ujjon him. 
His dust goes to feed the roots of a neighboring tree, or to 
clothe with fresh beauty the flower that blooms over it. 

And is this all ? This is all. Is there no resurrection ? no 
life to come ? No resurrection ; no life to come. Can Nature, 
with her mighty array of means, her vast apparatus of worlds, 
every one of which contains within itself inexhaustible resources, 
— can she do more than this ? No more than this. Or, as 
time is endless and chances are infinite, possibly she may do 
more. By continuing without remission her blind efforts for a 
few million or a few hundred million years, she may at length 
succeed in producing a quadrumane of yet higher develop: ment, 



234 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

and yet larger intelligence, who shall eat and drink and sleep 
more luxuriously, who shall array himself in finer apparel, and 
rear for his accommodation more sumptuous palaces ; who shall 
ride more gayly, and dance more gracefully, and discourse in 
fitter terms of man and nature and destiny, and who, when he 
comes to die and be buried, shall be fed upon by worms of bet- 
ter appearance, and whose dust shall go to nourish trees of a 
finer port and flowers of brighter colors. And is this all ? All, 
absolutely all. Nature no further can go. 

But may we not find some alleviation to our humbled and 
wounded pride in the moral nature of man, — the last refuge of 
our hopes ? May we not discover here his true nobility ? Al- 
though allied by his bodily and mental structure to the beasts 
of the field, and destined like them to perish, may he not 
impart dignity to his existence, brief though it be, by a life of 
virtue and self-sacrifice, of high resolves and noble aims and 
heroic endeavors ? Alas ! alas ! virtue is only a name. High 
resolves and noble aims and heroic endeavors are of no more 
worth than fig leaves, or fennel seed, or apple blossoms. Man 
is not a responsible agent. His imagined consciousness of free- 
dom is illusory. His good and bad actions are no more subjects 
for praise or blame than the ascent of a rocket and the descent 
of the stick. The creature of blind chance, he is the victim of 
an implacable destiny. Prometheus like, he is bound by an 
adamantine chain to the rock of fate, while the vulture con- 
science gnaws at his vitals. Lines of antecedent and conse- 
quent, extending from the first movement in the original chaos 
of atoms, across the cycles of planetary evolution to the newly 
formed earth, and thence, with continuity unbroken, down the 
geologic ages to man, run through all his actions, binding them 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 235 

to one another by indissoluble ties. Every thought and desire 
and purpose were predetermined from the beginning. He can 
no more change his character or his life than he can change 
his person. He is a mere puppet, obeying in every movement 
an unalienable necessity. He is the football of destiny, the 
plaything of fate. He is morally of no more worth than a 
worm, a tree, or a stone. 

And is this all that the boasted philosophy can give us ? Is 
it for such a mess of pottage that we are asked to part with 
our spiritual birthright ? For so beggarly a possession are we 
to open faith's treasury and pour out of her riches ? How 
unlike these dreary, dismal wastes of positivism are the visions 
which meet us when we cross the border and enter her domin- 
ions ! How different the sights and sounds which everywhere 
greet our senses ! How changed is the aspect of all around us! 
Nature has risen from her deadly swoon, and sits arrayed in her 
beautiful garments. A celestial intelligence beams in her coun- 
tenance, and from every one of her myriad tongues comes up 
the voice of praise. The heavens declare the glory of God, and 
the firmament showeth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth 
speech, and night unto night showeth knowledge ; and there is 
no speech nor language where their voice is not heard. Earth, 
with all in it and on it, joins in the great acclaim. The sea 
roars, the waves lift up their voice, the mountains break forth 
into singing, the trees clap their hands, the little hills rejoice on 
every side. God is in all the beneficent agencies of Nature. 
He sendeth the streams among the valleys. He watereth the 
hills from his chambers. He causeth the grass to grow for the 
cattle, and with oil, bread, and wine rejoiceth the heart of man. 
All living things wait upon Him, that He may give them their 



236 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

meat in due season. The earth is full of His riches ; so is the 
great and wide sea. His providential care is over all the crea- 
tures which He has made. He heareth the young ravens when 
they cry. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without His notice. 
The hairs of our head are numbered. The manifestations of 
power are everywhere His. God thundereth marvellously ; the 
lightnings go before Him. He giveth snow like wool ; He scat- 
tereth hoar frost like ashes. The earth trembles, and the hills 
melt like wax at His presence. He is in all, and through all, 
and over all. The world is full of God. 

Man is no longer a worthless link in an adamantine chain of 
necessity. He is a free moral intelligence, bearing in every 
lineament the image of his Maker. Though a little lower than 
the angels, he is crowned with glory and honor, and dominion 
is given him over all God's works. Nothing is too great for his 
power. He putteth forth his hand upon the rock ; he over- 
turneth the mountains by their roots ; he cutteth out rivers 
among the rocks, and his eye seeth every precious thing. He 
bindeth the floods from overflowing, and the thing that was 
hid he bringeth to light. He setteth an end to darkness, and 
he searcheth out all perfection. 

In his higher nature, man is raised above all terrestrial analo- 
gies and relationships. He possesses a soul of boundless aspira- 
tions and capacities, made for endless progress in knowledge, in 
virtue, and in happiness. He is of more worth than the whole 
shining firmament of material worlds. Dear to the Father, be- 
loved of the Son who came down from heaven to die for him, min- 
istered to and rejoiced over by angels, enlightened, instructed, 
and comforted by God's holy Spirit, he is but a sojourner on 
the earth ; his kindred and home are in the skies. There pre- 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 237 

pared mansions in his Father's house wait for him. Thither 
cherubic bands convoy him. As the pearly gates of the celes- 
tial city open to admit him, a deeper thrill of joy pervades 
heaven. He is now an immortal among immortals. Bodily 
impediments and incumbrances have been laid aside. He has 
no longer need of the light of the sun or the moon. He is 
perpetually bathed in the effulgence which pours from the 
throne of God and of the Lamb. His material wants have 
ceased. He slakes his thirst with the water of the river of life. 
He satisfies his hunger with the immortal food that grows upon 
its banks. An eternity of worship, of knowledge, of life, of 
joy, is before him. 

Such are the pictures presented by faith on the one hand, 
and positivism on the other. Is it difficult to choose between 
them ? 

But it is not from the direct influence of positivism, deadly 
as is the atmosf)here which envelops this moral upas, that we 
have most to fear. Its aspect and surroundings deter and 
repel us. We are conscious of the mephitic vapors with which 
the air is laden, and hasten our retreating steps. It is the out- 
growths of positive knowledge, — the forms of material and 
social development that have sprung from its marvelous expan- 
sion during the past century, — that are fraught with the 
greatest perils. Although not directly attacking our faith, they 
undermine the qualities of character upon which it depends, and 
strengthen every opposing principle. They intensify the desire 
for material good, by multiplying indefinitely the means of its 
gratification. They make life worldly, by widening immensur- 
ably the area of our knowledge and interests. Steam, the tele- 
graph, and press have endowed us with a sort of ubiquity. No 



238 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

important event; physical or social, political or financial, can 
occur in any part of the civilized world, but we are immediately 
cognizant of it. There is spread out before us each morning 
an amount and variety of knowledge, to gather which, in the 
palmiest days of Greece and Rome, would have required a life- 
time of travel. We sit in our own parlors and view at leisure 
whatever round the wide earth is grand or beautiful, in nature 
and art. 

Our facilities for action are equally increased. The work of 
a month is done in a day. The experience and activities of a 
year are crowded into a week. A decade of years is practically 
equivalent to a lifetime. Amid the whirl of occupation and the 
excitement of business, the demands of our higher natures are 
unheeded. There is no time for thought or reflection, no leis- 
ure for contemplation and self-communing, deemed by the old 
divines so important a means of religious culture. The pleas- 
ures of sense, of intellect, and of taste, in forms ever new, vie 
with one another in drowning the inward sense of need and 
quenching all spiritual aspiration. The moral intuitions, those 
windows of the soul, become darkened, so that the light of 
heaven is no longer admitted through them. If two thousand 
years ago, when wealth had comparatively few uses, it was 
easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a 
rich man to enter the kingdom of God, what must be its perils 
at the present day, when, through the multiplication of every 
species of art and device, its power to minister to the lust of the 
flesh, and the lust of the eye, and the pride of life, has been a 
hundred-fold increased. 

It is not, however, in the gratifications afforded by wealth, 
nor its ministry to every form of worldliness, that lies the chief 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 239 

danger. Grave as this is, it is trifling in comparison with the 
perils attending the struggle for its acquisition. The desire of 
wealth becomes intense in proportion to the number and variety 
of its uses. Never before, since the world began, were these 
so great ; and never before were men so eager and absorbed in 
its pursuit. No labors are too arduous, no sacrifices too greats 
no devotion too unremitting, if but its visions dance before 
their eyes. When lawful means fail, unlawful are tried. Man- 
hood and conscience for a time remonstrate ; but soon their 
voice is silenced. Interest and the selfish passions become the 
sole guides to action. The requirements of honor and truth, of 
justice and right, are alike disregarded. Sentiments the most 
atrocious, and principles the most despicable, are avowed and 
acted upon. Faith, unable to endure such companionship, takes 
her upward flight. The soul becomes darkened and deformed 
by evil passions. It has exchanged the bright plumage of an 
ano-el for the bat-wine^s of a devil. 

Such is the moral havoc wrought by the fruits of positive 
science ; by that abounding wealth which an explored and sub- 
jugated nature is pouring into the lap of society. And is there 
no remedy ? As our knowledge of material agents and forces 
is extended, and these are brought more largely into the service 
of man, must the evil go on increasing ? Must Christianity at 
length fall through the instrumentalities which she herself has 
created? Must the dove of Christian faith sink down, trans- 
fixed with an arrow winged by a feather from her own bosom ? 
Does God defeat His own purposes ? Does He call into exist- 
ence beneficent agencies simply in order to their destruction? 
Has He in these last days opened to man inexhaustible resources 
of happiness and power, only that they may demoralize and 



240 THE REALM OF FAITH. 

ruin ? Are the new-born hopes of our race so soon and so mis- 
erably to perish ? Is there no corrective in the treasures of di- 
vine wisdom by which the threatened evil may be averted ? No 
weapon in the divine armory by which the malign power may 
be met and turned backwards ? Has God suffered the world to 
acquire the means of redoubling its assaults on the hearts of 
men, without adequate provisions for counteracting its influ- 
ence ? In the natural world, every bane has its antidote ; every 
disease its remedy. Are the disorders of the moral world alone 
uncared for ? Are there here no antidotes, no remedies ? Yes, 
there is one sovereign remedy adequate to the cure of all dis- 
eases ; one mighty weapon capable of beating back the assaults 
of all enemies. That remedy, that weapon, is faith, — faith in 
God, and faith in man as the child of God, and destined here- 
after to dwell with Him ; faith in moral law and the divine gov- 
ernment ; faith in virtue and justice and goodness and truth ; 
faith in right and duty ; faith in doing unto others as we would 
that they should do unto us ; faith in all the precepts and doc- 
trines of the gospel of Jesus Christ ; that faith which gives 
substance to things hoped for, and is the evidence of things not 
seen ; which sets the two worlds in their proper relations to one 
another 5 which takes off the glare from one, and dissolves the 
mists that obscure the other ; which dwarfs one into its native 
littleness, and discloses the other in its true magnitude and im- 
portance ; which reckons character above station ; honor from 
God as of more worth than the good opinion of men ; heavenly 
treasures as of greater value than earthly possessions : in whose 
estimation the gain of the whole world would be but a poor 
equivalent for the loss of the soul ; according to whose teach- 
ings it is better to give than to receive, to suffer wrong than to 



THE REALM OF FAITH. 241 

do wrong, to be a poor and humble disciple of Jesus of Naza- 
reth than the possessor of all earthly riches and honors ; which 
thinks God mightier than steam or electricity, death stronger 
than title deeds, and eternity longer than time. Faith, such a 
faith, is needed in the individual to elevate and fortify personal 
character, and to impart to it just proportions and true dignity. 
It is only when encased in the mail of strong convictions that 
he can safely or successfully engage in the battles of life. 
Faith, such a faith, is needed to permeate and purify society; 
to give it strength and courage, and the will to rid itself of the 
profligacy and corruption with which its highways and byways 
are filled, and to enable it to convert the boundless resources 
which a prodigal nature offers, from instruments of evil into the 
means of unlimited good. And faith is adequate to this. It 
can cause the camel to go through the eye of the needle. It 
deprives wealth of its power to harm by disclosing its proper 
value and true uses ; by making it tributary to a higher and 
better culture, and a fairer and nobler development of all the 
humanities ; by finding in it the means not only of alleviating 
physical suffering, but of causing the moral desert to blossom 
as the rose, and preparing and fertilizing the fields of earth for 
the harvests of heaven. Resources however limitless, under 
such guidance, are without danger. Were Nature to uncover 
all her hidden treasures of wealth and power, and lay them at 
the feet of man, thus strengthened and fortified, he would be 
able not only to bear the moral strain, but to turn this mighty 
accession of means to the direct advancement of the highest 
interests of the race. 

The special need, the fundamental necessity, of our modern 
civilization, — that which alone can give it permanence, — with- 

16 



242 'i'^^P^ REALM OF FAITH. 

out which it will only repeat with exaggerated features the story 
of all past civilizations, is not popular education, nor free insti- 
tutions, nor republican forms of government, nor the harnessing 
of nature's forces to the car of human progress, but faith, a 
vital, operative faith, pervading all classes of society, and laying 
the only sure foundation for self-government, the essential condi- 
tion of true liberty, and continued social improvement. What- 
ever tends to unsettle the moral and religious convictions of men 
loosens to that extent the bonds of society, and prepares the 
way for disorder, revolution, and anarchy, to end in the strong 
repression of despotism. Whatever strengthens those convic- 
tions tends to impart stability to the social fabric, and enable it 
to resist alike the hand of violence and the shocks of time. The 
work of the Christian teacher and preacher is more important 
than that of the philosopher, or statesman, or scholar. Back in 
the depths of the soul he reaches the springs of action ; they 
only direct its course. His healing touch is applied to the 
sources of moral and social life ; they only shape the channels 
in which it shall flow. It is his office to promote the temper 
and quicken the aspirations which lead to progress, and which 
alone render permanent progress possible ; they only open 
paths, remove obstacles, and provide facilities for the advancing 
movement. He draws his most cogent arguments from the other 
world ; their horizon is limited to this. He holds in his hand 
a power mightier than king or potentate ever wielded, — these 
alter only the condition of men ; through his instrumentality 
their natures are changed ; a power greater than science or art 
can boast, — these affect only a brief existence ; upon his min- 
istry waits everlasting life ; a power which all earthly agencies 
combined cannot equal, — the power of a living, abiding, over- 
coming faith. 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE.^ 



The thesis of Mr. Hazard, on first announcement, is startling 
and paradoxical. We are accustomed to regard creative power 
as exclusively an attribute of Deity. He alone can call into 
being that which was not. Man's power is limited to effecting 
changes in what already exists. Actual creation, or the pro- 
duction of something out of nothing, is so difficult of conception 
that some philosophers are led to question its possibility, and to 
limit the work of God to the construction of the universe from 
preexisting materials. Sir William Hamilton takes this ground. 
He says matter must either be coeternal with God, or God must 
have produced it from his own substance. We cannot, he adds, 
suppose the sum of being ever to have been greater or less than 
it is now. Addition to it or subtraction from it is alike unthink- 
able. All the being now in existence must have always existed, 
either actually or potentially. It is evident, then, that man can- 
not be regarded by Mr. Hazard as, in this primary and absolute 
sense, a creative first cause. 

But if we confine the idea of creation to mere changes of 
form, such as we see in progress everywhere around us, and, as 

1 Man a Creative First Cause. Two Discourses delivered at Concord, Mass., July, 
1882, by Rowland G. Hazard, LL. D., author of Language and other Papers, etc., 
etc. Second edition. Boston : Houghton, Mifflin & Co. 1884. 



244 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

we learn from the investigations of science, have been going 
forward from the remotest epochs of the past, man could with 
scarcely more propriety be styled a creative first cause. There 
are forces intimately connected with matter, upon whose varied 
activity the modifications which it undergoes immediately de- 
pend. These forces, although convertible into one another, are 
believed to be as indestructible as the matter in which they ap- 
pear. Man can neither add anything to them nor take anything 
from them. The creation of any of these forces is as impossible 
to him as the creation of matter. In fact, matter is known to 
us only as the seat and the vehicle of these forces. All its 
changes from rest to motion and from motion to rest — all its 
myriad transformations — are due to these forces. 

If, then, we restrict the idea of creation to the mere transfor- 
mations of matter, man can have but little part in it. The most 
he can do is to supply the conditions for bringing the required 
forces in action. He may hoist the gate of the water-mill, or 
open the valve of the steam-engine, or apply the match to the 
cannon. It is the forces thus liberated by him that do the work. 

But our author is an idealist. He does not allow the exist- 
ence of matter as a separate and distinct entity, or the reality of 
the forces which make their appearance in connection with it. 
All the phenomena usually ascribed to it he refers to the im- 
mediate exertion of the divine will. Ideas existing in the mind 
of God are made by Him real and palpable to all finite intelli- 
gences. Creation is thus a perpetual work — the ceaseless im- 
pressing of the divine thought upon the consciousness of per- 
cipient beings. Surely the slight control which man has acquired 
over nature through the study of her laws bears no resemblance 
to this ! 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 245 

But Mr. Hazard is not yet content. He rises to a still bolder 
and more startling proposition. It is not enough that man is a 
creative first cause. In the sphere of his own moral nature, he 
is a supreme, creative first cause. His will, in which the crea- 
tive power resides, is his own. No extrinsic force can reach it. 
He is self-moved and self-governed. He always acts or refrains 
from action in accordance with his own choices. He is free in 
willing, as God is free ; free as it is possible for any agent to 
be. Under the guidance of the aesthetic and moral sense, he 
may create within himself a world more perfect than the world 
made known to him through the senses. In this creation, like 
God in His creation, he is supreme. He is subject to no limi- 
tations, as in the material world, either from his own nature or 
from forces without himself. By the habitual contemplation 
of this inner and more perfect world, and by constant effort to 
bring his life into harmony with it, he may build for himself 
a pure, virtuous, noble character. Whatever other advantages 
metaphysics may offer, this is their chief use and highest end. 

The propositions which we have briefly indicated are treated 
by Mr. Hazard as not doubtful nor problematical. They are 
made to rest upon premises which, certain definitions being ac- 
cepted, we are compelled to admit. In surveying the ground of 
these premises and in tracing the logical sequences from them, 
he shows a breadth and acuteness of vision not surpassed in any 
of his previous writings. He treats the subtle questions con- 
nected with the will and the almost equally perplexing difficul- 
ties involved in the doctrine of causation, with a keenness of 
analysis and a delicacy of discrimination which might have saved 
Edwards and Mill, two of the ablest thinkers of their times, from 
serious error. Although past fourscore years of age, his intel- 



246 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

lectual eye is not dimmed nor his mental force abated. The 
language, too, is as admirable as the thought. It possesses in 
an eminent degree the two chief requisites of a philosophical 
style, clearness and precision. If he is not understood, the 
fault is not his, but in the reader. 

Curiously enough, we chanced to be reading a theologico- 
philosophical work of Mr. Mulf ord, — " The Republic of God," 
— when, by the kindness of Mr. Hazard, this little volume was 
put into our hands. On laying aside the former and opening 
the latter, we were strongly impressed with the difference be- 
tween the two books. In one we found propositions freely 
enunciated, appealing for support to principles assumed to be 
axiomatic, but to few of which the mind yielded an unqualified 
assent ; in the other, premises carefully laid down and conclu- 
sions logically derived from them. It was like passing out from 
a region of mists and shadows into a land of unclouded day. 
Having placed upon a sure foundation his ethical doctrines, Mr. 
Hazard, in applying them, does not fear to draw upon the re- 
sources of an exuberant imagination. In this part of the work 
occur passages of singular grace and beauty. 

The propositions maintained by Mr. Hazard are four : 1. 
Man is a cause ; 2. Man is a first cause ; 3. Man is a creative 
first cause ; 4. Man, in the sphere of his moral nature, is a su- 
preme, creative first cause. 

The first of these propositions would seem to require no proof. 
We are conscious of putting forth effort, and we observe the 
change produced by that effort. We infer by the most exten- 
sive and satisfactory of all inductions, that other men put forth 
effort, and we see it in like manner followed by change. This 
effort is, in the truest sense, the cause of the change. It is not 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 247 

the occasion of the change merely, it is not simply one of the 
conditions of the change, it is the true cause — the causa vera 
— of the change. I lift, for instance, a ten-pound weight, and 
hold it poised in my hand. In doing this, I put forth an effort 
of exactly ten pounds, and by that effort exactly balance the 
downward tendency of the ten-pound weight. The effort is 
neither more nor less than the downward tendency of the weight. 
It is wholly expended in resisting that downward tendency. 
The effort, therefore, is the true, efficient cause of the suspension 
of the ten-pound weight, and is exactly measured by the ten- 
dency of that weight downwards. 

Again, the laborer takes a sack of grain and transports it a 
mile. In this case the effort is greater than the resistance of 
the sack to transportation. Besides bearing the sack, the la- 
borer must carry himself, a weight, it may be, greater than that 
of the sack. The effort of the laborer is the true, efficient cause 
of the transportation of the sack, but is not measured by its re- 
sistance to transportation. Only a part of the effort is exf)ended 
in carrying the sack ; another part is expended in supporting 
the weight while carrying it, and in carrying himself. Still the 
laborer is the efficient cause of the transportation of the sack. 

Again, the engineer opens a valve and lets steam on the pis- 
ton of the locomotive, and quickly the train of cars attached to 
it is in rapid motion. In this case, is the engineer the cause 
of this movement? Does the force required for the continued 
motion of the train originate with him ? He has simply opened 
a valve. He has put forth an effort equivalent to the resistance 
of the valve to being opened. He is the true and efficient cause 
of the opening of the valve. That is all. Other causes of great 
energy have come into action by which the train is hurled along 



248 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

the track. Over these causes he has no control. He can neither 
add to nor take from their energy. When the proper condi- 
tions are supplied, their action is instantaneous and inevitable. 

A few years ago an effort was made to widen and deepen the 
passage in the East River known as Hell Gate. The engineer 
to whom the work was committed, conceived the idea of perfo- 
rating the bottom and sides of the channel with drilled holes, 
sufficiently large and deep to receive heavy charges of dynamite, 
and then of firing these at the same instant by means of elec- 
tricity. Having made all his preparations for carrying out this 
idea, he gave public notice of the day and hour and minute when 
the terrific explosion might be expected. In the presence of a 
great multitude of spectators, his little daughter, away from all 
danger, touched a spring that closed the galvanic circle, and 
instantly huge masses of rock were torn from their base and 
thrown upwards, as if by the shock of an earthquake. What 
was the cause of this majestic phenomenon ? Was it the touch 
of the child ? Was that touch the equivalent of the mighty 
forces brought into action ? Of course not. The child's touch 
was the equivalent of the slight resistance of the spring that 
closed the circle. It was the true and efficient cause of the clos- 
ing of the circle, — only of that. For the gigantic forces 
evolved in the explosion we must look to the energies indissol- 
ubly connected with matter. 

But let us return to the instance of causative power first sug- 
gested. Take the effort of which I am conscious in supporting 
in my hand a ten-pound weight. Bodily effort, as ordinarily 
understood, takes in, besides the volition, the swell and play of 
muscles of which we are at the same time conscious throusfh 
what has been named the muscular sense. Effort is not synony- 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 249 

mous Avith volition, as Mr. Hazard seems to suppose. It is voli- 
tion and something more. It is the embodiment of volition in 
action. The question then becomes, Is the volition by which 
the effort is made the equivalent of the weight supported? 
Suppose the arm to be paralyzed. I may will as vigorously as 
before, but the arm is not raised, the weight is not supported. 
I am incapable of effort with the arm. Something more than 
volition is required to effect any outward change. The will must 
have a prepared instrument. Without such an instrument it can 
do nothing ; it is powerless. In ordinary effort who can tell 
how much of the work done is due to the volition and how much 
to the forces liberated in and applied by the instrument? We 
must be careful not to mistake the child's touch for the cause of 
the explosion. The touch of the will in ordinary effort may 
bear as slight a ratio to the work accomplished. Still, the will 
is a force, and man has causative power — is a true cause, how- 
ever insignificant a one when compared with the mighty ener- 
gies which pervade his own frame and extend through all na- 
ture. It is these material forces without him and within hmi 
that man calls to his aid when anything is to be done, and it is 
through their agency that the work is accomplished. 

According to the received teachings of science, these forces 
are all resolvable into two kinds of energy : kinetic energy, or 
the energy of moving bodies, mechanical force ; and the energy 
of position, or chemical force, manifesting itself in forms of at- 
traction and repulsion. These two kinds of energy are convert- 
ible into one another. In the never-ceasing phenomena trans- 
piring around us they are undergoing such conversion, their 
sum always remaining the same. The principal agents by which 
this conversion is effected are the leaves of plants and the lungs 



250 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

of animals. The great office of the vegetable kingdom is to 
change kinetic energy, as it pours from the sun, into the energy 
of position ; which latter is in turn changed back again into 
specific forms of kinetic energy by the animal kingdom. Each 
of the two kingdoms thus supplies food and the possibility of 
life to the other. Besides the respiration of animals, there are 
processes of decay everywhere going forward, which also yield 
food for plants. The sun is the primary cause of all the trans- 
formations which are taking place on the surface of our planet. 
According as he shines or withholds his beams, he spreads over 
it a sheet of perennial verdure, or leaves it to ice and barrenness. 
In the sun is stored a supply of force which the geologic ages 
have failed to exhaust. Should it ever be expended by diffusion 
through space, all change upon the earth would cease. It might 
still turn daily upon its axis and trace its annual course along 
the same orbit, but not as now, clothed with beauty and the 
home of innumerable forms of life, but shrouded in darkness 
and locked in frost, the abode of eternal silence and death. 

Mr. Hazard, it is hardly necessary to say, does not accept 
this view of nature. He does not allow to matter any causal 
power. He doubts the persistence of the first kind of energy, — 
the energy of moving bodies. His words are, " If the tendency 
of matter is to stop, then it can have in itself no power or 
force whatever ; " and again, " I confess myself unable to find 
any solution of this radical question ; but until it is settled, I 
do not see how matter, though in motion, can properly be re- 
garded as a force." 

He thus calls in question the postulate by which, in connec- 
tion with the law of gravitation, Sir Isaac Newton explains the 
orbital motions of the planets, and upon which La Place built 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 251 

his " Mecanique Celeste." The second kind of energy of 
which philosophers tell us — the energy of position — he 
wholly ignores. 

For all the forces that appear in matter he substitutes the 
energy of the supreme will. According to him, the explosion 
in Hell Gate was the simple thought of God, timed by the 
imagined touch of the child, made palpable to the mind of each 
one of the multitude who supposed they were looking on and 
witnessing an unusual display of force. 

" We know nothing of matter," he affirms, " except by the 
sensations which we impute to its agency, and these sensations 
are as fully accounted for by the hypothesis that they are the 
thought, the imagery, of the mind of God, directly imparted or 
made palpable to our finite minds, as by that of a distinct ex- 
ternal substance in which He has embodied this thought and 
imagery." On this hypothesis, the action of the will, of what- 
ever nature it may be, is transferred from the forces of mat- 
ter to the mind of God. God, instead of these forces, does the 
work. A man travels, as he imagines, and visits different cities. 
God, in attendance, manifests to him, makes real to his con- 
sciousness, whatever he imagines that he sees, by awakening ni 
him the proper sensations. God is doing this for every human 
being when, by change of place, he takes in new objects of 
sight. Nay, He is doing the same for all living things which 
have feeling and will, in all their infinite variety of movement. 
At the bidding of a million of human wills, God devised and 
daily makes palpable to the multitudes who pass over it the 
marvelous structure which, spanning the East River, joins the 
city of Brooklyn to the city of New York. In the same way 
He reared the elevated railways of the latter city, and every day 



252 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

renews the vision, with cars whirling along the iron tracks, to 
half its population. The young lions roar and seek their prey 
from God. He satisfieth them by awakening the sensation of 
a repast upon human flesh or the flesh of some animal. The 
ravens cry unto God, and He feedeth them in like manner with 
sensations. The wants of the little ant, so active and indus- 
trious, are provided for in a similar way. The oyster, which is 
regarded by the author as " a creative first cause," and justly 
so on his definition of creation, on raising its movable valve 
to take in food, is obliged to be content with its imagined 
taste. 

Idealism does not increase the causative power of the will. 
According to this theory, the imagination of the desired change 
is awakened in the mind by the direct act of God. Accord- 
ing to the theory ordinarily received, the change itself is pro- 
duced by the forces inseparably connected with matter. On 
neither theory is anything or can anything be done by the 
unaided will. On both theories, however great a deduction it 
may be necessary to make from the apparent efficiency of the 
will, it has a certain part in the production of changes in the 
outward world. This is true in the case of idealism, if we sup- 
pose that the human will acts causatively upon the divine will ; 
that it is not merely an antecedent to the volition of God, but 
is the true and efficient cause of that volition. Mr. Hazard 
virtually says this, and it is necessarily implied in his teach- 
ing. For if the human volition were a mere condition of the 
change produced by God, and had no agency in the production 
of that change, it could not then be regarded as the " causa 
causans,'" the original and efiicient cause of the change. With 
this understanding, therefore, whether we adopt idealism or 



^fAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 253 

realism, man is a cause in the truest and strictest sense of the 
word. 

2. Man is a first cause. By this is meant, not that he is first 
in point of time, but that he is an original and self-acting 
cause, in contradistinction from a cause that is acted upon, and 
simply transmits that action. The question really is whether 
man is a free agent, or whether his actions are controlled by a 
power without himself, as absolute as that which governs the 
course of physical events. Or, in other words, whether the 
mind is free in willing, or whether its volitions are determined 
by something l^eyond and outside of itself. 

To this question there can be but one answer. The mind is 
free in willing. Its volitions are determined by itself. They 
are its own unrestrained, uncontrolled acts. This is the high- 
est and most perfect freedom which we are able to conceive. 

President Edwards, from the controversial character of his 
work on the will, was led to consider another and different 
question, " Is the will free ? " This was supposed by his oppo- 
nents to be essential to human accountability. He therefore 
argues this question, and maintains that the will is not free or 
self-determined in its action ; that a man's volitions are con- 
trolled by the man himself ; that they depend upon his charac- 
ter, and are consequently determined by that. The will, there- 
fore, is not free. 

Such is the argument of President Edwards. It is, as it was 
intended to be, a reductio ad ahsurdmn. It contemplates a 
freedom which is impossible, — a freedom of the will, — the will 
acting independently of all motives, volition without choice, or 
preference, or end. It is of the very nature of will to act from 
motives and towards ends. It is this which distinguishes the 



254 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

action of intelligent, voluntary agents from that of insensate 
matter. " A constrained or coerced willing," Mr. Hazard very 
justly and acutely remarks, " a willing that is not free, is not 
even conceivable. The idea is so incongruous that any attempt 
to express it results in the solecism of our willing when we are 
not willing." But when the proper question is put. Is man a 
free agent ? and not. Is his will free ? we are compelled to 
answer in the affirmative. His voHtions are determined by him- 
self, and this is the most perfect freedom that any being can 
have. 

President Edwards lays too much stress upon what he calls 
the strongest motive. He seems to forget that into every mo- 
tive there enter two factors, — the object to be obtained, and 
the desire on the part of the individual to obtain it ; and that 
the latter is the determining factor. To say that a man is 
always governed by the strongest motive is simply to say that 
a man always adopts the course of action to which he is most 
strongly, inclined, or which, all things considered, he chooses 
and prefers to any alternate course of action. And this again 
is the same as saying that a man free from external restraint 
will, within the limits of his power, act just as at the time he 
chooses to act, — which is the highest and most perfect freedom 
that we can suppose any person to possess, the highest and most 
perfect freedom conceivable. 

The principle of causality, one of the clearest intuitions of 
the human intelligence, precludes the supposition of a larger 
liberty of action. It connects conduct with character by an in- 
dissoluble tie. Even if we could suppress this intuition so far 
as it relates to volitions, and set them wholly free from depend- 
ence upon the agent, instead of enlarging his freedom we 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 255 

should destroy it altogether. Every effort to establish a more 
perfect liberty than this, — which is conceded by all, — that a 
man is free to do just as he chooses, his choice depending upon 
his character, is a vain struggle against the causal judgment. 

It is because a man's conduct depends upon his character — 
grows out of it — that he is responsible for his voluntary acts. 
Were there not a causal tie between the two, between character 
and conduct, a man would be no more accountable for his own 
acts than for the acts of his neighbor. This intimate connec- 
tion between what a man is and how he conducts himself is 
recognized in the self-reproach inflicted when he is conscious of 
having behaved unworthily. All the phenomena of conscience 
recognize such a connection. 

It might be desired, if it were possible, that a man should 
have direct voluntary power over himself, — that he should be 
able to change a bad character into a good one and a good 
character into one still better, by simply willing it. But such 
is not the prerogative of will. It can only act upon character 
indirectly, by long and continued exertion, under the guidance 
of the moral sense, as shown by Mr. Hazard in another part of 
his work. 

In like manner the agriculturist might be glad, if such a 
thing were possible, to change his rocky and barren lands into 
rich and fertile fields, by simply willing the transformation. But 
he knows that it is not within his power. He is therefore con- 
tent to take the more roundabout course ; to remove one after 
another the rocky obstructions, and gradually mellow and en- 
rich the soil by careful tillage. He in this way arrives at the 
same result as if the change were under the immediate control 
of his will, or as if it were caused by the direct act of God. 



256 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

There is in reality no difference between President Edwards 
and Mr. Hazard as to the nature of the connection between 
a voluntary agent and his unrestrained acts. It is the connec- 
tion between cause and effect, — an intelligent and free cause 
acting out itself, and thus manifesting its true character. It is 
for this reason that such an agent is held responsible for his 
acts, and is praised or blamed on account of them. Did not his 
acts proceed from himself and reveal his character, he would 
not be a fit subject for moral government. 

These acknowledged masters of thought agree in respect to 
all that is essential to human freedom and human accountabil- 
ity. They alike maintain that man is a free agent, having as 
perfect liberty of action as it is possible to conceive, and that 
at the same time there is a causal tie between his character and 
his conduct, such as to make him accountable for the latter, 
and therefore a fit subject for government by rewards and 
punishments. President Edwards places " Freedom of the 
Will " on the title-page of his work, and conducts the dis- 
cussion throughout under that heading. Most of his argu- 
ments are designed for the refutation of that doctrine. He 
might have saved himself much tedious reasoning by stating 
at the commencement the true and proper question, " Is man 
a free agent ? " instead of the improper and almost unmean- 
ing question, " Is the will free ? " He was aware of the 
incongruity of the language of the question, and particularly 
points it out, but conformed to the usage of those whose argu- 
ments he met. For this reason his work lacks the clearness 
and demonstrative vigor which characterize the briefer pages of 
Mr. Hazard. 

But this perfect liberty of action does not put all men on the 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 257 

same footing before God. A man is free to do as he chooses, 
but his choices will depend in part upon his original constitu- 
tion, and in part upon his acquired habits of thought, feeling, 
and action, or, in other words, upon his character, which is the 
resultant of all these combined. His original constitution was 
not of his own choosing. Whatever it may have been, he is not 
responsible for it ; he is only responsible for acting according 
to his best lights under it. For his acquired habits of thought, 
feeling, and action, by which the nature given him has become 
modified, he is to a certain extent, but by no means wholly, 
responsible. It is these differences among men, from the very 
start, together with their different surroundings, that make 
obedience to the moral law more or less easy, more or less diffi- 
cult. It is their freedom to act as they choose that causes these 
differences to appear in their conduct. If a man's volitions were 
determined by a power without himself, he would be incapable 
of obedience or virtue, and whatever his conduct, he would be 
no more a subject for praise or blame than the material ele- 
ments around him. 

The second proposition of Mr. Hazard, therefore, we think 
fully established. Man is a first cause, first in the sense that 
he is not a cause acted upon, and simply transmitting that 
action, but an original, voluntary, and self-acting cause, capable 
of starting within the sphere of his activity a new order of 
events, which but for him would never have taken place. The 
argument, so far as I see, is unassailable, the conclusion incon- 
trovertible ; and this, too, whether idealism or reahsm be ac- 
cepted as the theory of the universe. 

5' 3. The third proposition of Mr. Hazard, that man is a crea- 
tive first cause, with his definition of creation, follows necessarily 

17 



258 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

from what has gone before. Creation is defined to be the al- 
teration of the future by an intelligent, voluntary effort. No 
power can change the past. "Every being," he says, "that 
wills is a creative first cause, an independent power in the uni- 
verse, freely exerting its individual energies to make the future 
different from what it would otherwise have been." " The cre- 
ation of this future for each successive moment is the composite 
result of the efforts of every being that wills." " Whatever 
its grade of intelligence, if it make successful effort to produce 
change, it so far acts as an original creative cause in producing 
the future. The power and knowledge of such a being may be 
verv limited, but within the limits of these attributes its action 
is as free as if it were omniscient and omnipotent." " Its effort 
must be to make the future different from what, but for such 
effort, it would be. Such a being is a co-worker with God and 
other connative beings in creating the future, which is always 
the composite result of the action of all such beings." " If 
we suppose an oyster with no other ef&cient power than that of 
moving its shell, and with the knowledge of only one mode of 
doing this, and this instinctive, still, when by its own effort, 
directed by its own knowledge, it effects this moving, it so far 
makes the future different from what it would have been, and 
so far performs a part in the creation of the future." 

In all of these passages creation is not used in its primary 
sense to denote the production of something, whether real or 
ideal, out of nothing, but in a wider and more general sense, to 
denote the modification of what already exists. There is little 
advance, except in phraseology, upon the doctrine already set 
forth, that man and all other voluntary agents, whatever the 
degree of their intelligence, are original and ef&cient causes. 



. MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 259 

An oyster takes its evening meal, a bird constructs her nest, a 
man purchases a horse, another carries to the miller a sack o£ 
grain, a third plants a vineyard, a fourth invents a sewing-ma- 
chine, a fifth makes a picture, a sixth carves a statue, a seventh 
writes a poem, an eighth, by thought and action, builds up for 
himself a virtuous and noble character. Under the wide gen- 
eralization of Mr. Hazard these are all creatorSo They have all, 
by their voluntary efforts, acting as first causes, made the future 
different from what it would otherwise have been. In their ca- 
pacity of original or first causes, they are by definition creative 
causes. All that is necessary to constitute a creative cause is 
original action. We do not see that the affix " creative " adds 
anything to " first cause." He seems to have been led to its 
use from the supposed resemblance of the work of an artist, or 
inventor, or poet to an act of the divine creation. But this sup- 
posed resemblance, as we shall see further on, can hardly be 
maintained, if his own ideal hypothesis be the true theory of the 
universe. Whether we adopt his view as to the nature of the 
divine act in creation or the one more commonly entertained, 
we are persuaded that, on a careful examination, there will not 
be discovered in any of the instances given, or in any work of 
man, a species of agency entitled to be regarded in philosoiDhic 
discourse as creative. The word must be extended beyond its 
usual and proper meaning, to cover so wide a generalization. 
Its use, however, gives a picturesqueness to his doctrine, and as 
he expressly states that he applies it to all voluntary actions 
which change the future, there is no danger of its becoming a 
source of error. 

Were the author a realist instead of an idealist, did he con- 
ceive matter, not as the creation of mind, but as the eternal, un- 



260 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

formed substance out of which God has from the beginning 
been fashioning and peopling worlds, then there would be a real 
analogy between His works and the work of man. On this 
supposition the case would stand thus : Matter is employed 
alike in the divine creation and in human creations, as an in- 
strument for accomplishing the purposes of mind. It is taken 
just as it is. Its unaltered properties are made, through special 
devices, available to these purposes. It is the innumerable con- 
trivances looking to intelligible and important ends through all 
nature that furnish the surest basis for the theistic argument. 
It is similar contrivances in the constructions of man that show 
the human intelligence to be kindred to the divine. But the 
resemblance in the two cases, it should be observed, is limited to 
the device and employment of appropriate means for the attain- 
ment of desired ends. It touches only the intelligence. The 
human and divine power are too unlike to admit of comparison. 
The will of man is restricted in its influence to his bodily organ- 
ization, and can effect changes in the outward world only 
through that. The will of God must be coextensive in its reach 
with the universe, and be capable of controlling by its exertion 
the subtlest forces of nature. 

4. The fourth and last proposition of Mr. Hazard is that man, 
in the sphere of his own moral nature, is a supreme creative 
first cause. This is perhaps the most instructive and valuable 
portion of the work. It is an illustration of what he intimates 
in its opening pages, " that the special field of metaphysical 
utility is in our moral nature ; that every one has within himself 
a domain as illimitable as that of the external world in which to 
exert his energies in the construction of a moral universe, and 
that within this domain the finite intelligence is not only a ere- 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 261 

ative but a supreme creative power, and that therein, by exer- 
cising its faculties upon itself, it may devise new modes of form- 
ing and moulding the moral character, and supply a demand 
which, always important, has now, by our progress in other di- 
rections, become the prominent and urgent necessity of our 
time." He shows with admirable clearness how an elevated 
moral character may be acquired by one who was not fortunate 
in his original endowments ; how, under the guidance of an in- 
fallible moral sense and with entire freedom in willing and ac- 
tion, he may check the wrong tendencies of his nature and en- 
courage and strengthen the right tendencies ; how, among his 
various and conflicting desires, he may, by power of will, give 
ascendency to those which favor virtue, and suppress and ban- 
ish those which lead to vice ; how the malevolent passions may 
be made to give place to the benevolent ; how selfishness and 
greed may be converted into generosity ; how one can mentally 
construct a moral world, better arranged and inhabited by 
beings more perfect than those around him ; how he can without 
hindrance make efforts to realize such a world, and bring his 
conduct and life into harmony with it ; how these moral efforts, 
persistently maintained, become at length habits ; and how these 
habits, incorporating themselves with his very being, grow into 
character. In this way an elevated, pure, and noble character 
may be formed where it did not previously exist. Such a char- 
acter is within the reach of every one if he will only put forth 
the effort for it. He is free to do just as he chooses. His voli- 
tions are under his own control. He has a monitor and guide 
which, so far as his actions are concerned, is infallible. Every 
effort he makes in obedience to its promptings is a virtuous 
effort, whatever may be its consequences. The virtue is in the 



262 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

effort. No matter how imperfectly instructed his conscience 
may be, if he act in accordance with the best light he has, he 
performs an act of the highest virtue of which, under existing 
conditions, he was capable. Of the character he gains thereby 
he is the sole author. He is the supreme creative first cause of 
the change produced in himself, and of all the changes which 
subsequently spring from that change. 

The author illustrates his fourth proposition at some length 
and with a variety of interesting and instructive details. The 
subject is so important that we need no apology for transferring 
to our pages some of his thoughtful and suggestive paragraphs. 
See page 63, section 18 : " But it is in " . . . down to " Su- 
preme creative first cause." The word " creative," we would 
remark, has a degree of propriety in this connection which it 
lacked in the previous cases, where the change effected was in 
the external, material world. A man who by his persistent, 
voluntary efforts has achieved for himself a lofty character may 
be said, with hardly a figure of speech, to have exercised crea- 
tive power. He has brought into existence all that is best in 
himself. 

The author adds certain cautions to be observed in the work 
of building up a virtuous character. Page 71. " We must be 
careful to distinguish between "... down to " all possible 
acquisitions." 

In what the author says of the limitations of Omnipotence, 
he does not mean, as we understand him, that God could not 
changfe the character of a bad man so that he should become a 
good one, and his voluntary actions be virtuous ; but that, the 
man's character remaining the same, God could not, by mere 
pressure upon his will, make his actions virtuous. 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 263 

Incidental to the main discussion and subsidiary to some of 
the positions taken in it, are speculations not inferior in interest 
to the discussion itself. One of these is his theory of instinct- 
ive actions. He supposes these to be voluntary and intelli- 
gently performed. The knowledge, however, of the end to be 
attained and of the means of reachinij it is innate or gfiven in 
the constitution of the being. He has this knowledge prior to 
all experience, and is able to act intelligently without aid from 
that source. Instinctive actions, therefore, differ from rational 
and deliberative actions simply in the way in which the knowl- 
edge guiding the will is acquired. In the first case it is innate, 
or constitutional ; in the second case it is gained from experi- 
ence. In both cases the action is voluntary and the will is 
guided by intelligence. He is forced into this position by the 
dogma to which he constantly adheres, that matter is incapable 
of acting as a cause ; that it cannot even put itself in motion ; 
that original action can be affirmed only of mind ; and that 
mind acts voluntarily under the guidance of its knowledge. If 
these instinctive movements could take place without the inter- 
vention of intelligence and will, then matter properly organized 
may put itself in motion. 

Unfortunately for the theory of Mr. Hazard, it derives sup- 
port from the teachings of neither psychology nor physiology. 
There are actions which take place not only without the stimu- 
lus of the will, but in direct opposition to its most strenuous ex- 
ertion. Some of these, as laughing, weeping, coughing, sneez- 
ing, are described by physiologists as consensual, in distinction 
from voluntary actions. The muscular contractions and relaxa- 
tions by which the infant first draws nutriment from the mater- 
nal breast are undoubtedly of this class. They are prompted 



264 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

immediately by the sensation of hunger, without the sHghtest 
knowledge of the necessity of food or of means of procuring it. 

There are other actions in which neither the will nor sensa- 
tion has part. They are caused by the mere contact of the ap- 
propriate stimuli. Such are the alternate lengthening and 
shortening of the muscles upon which respiration ordinarily de- 
pends. Such is the combined action of the heart and arteries 
in forcing the blood in microscopic streams through all the tis- 
sues. Such are the peculiar motions of the alimentary tube 
which carries the food, as fast as it is prepared, along its devi- 
ous way. Such are all the functions which serve for the imme- 
diate maintenance of life. They are traced to a connection with 
different parts of what is known as the excito-motary system of 
nerves. They are carried on in a state of profound uncon- 
sciousness. Were they dependent upon our voluntary powers, 
sleep, instead of bringing refreshment, would cause immediate 
death. 

The author explains in a similar manner the philosophy of 
habit, — how habit becomes second nature ; how the repetition 
of an action makes it easy, so that at length we perform it with- 
out conscious effort. The first time we perform the action there 
is necessarily thought and deliberation as to the best mode of ac- 
complishing the object which we have in view. This occasions 
delay. The second time we perform the action the deliberation 
is shorter and the delay occasioned less. The third time the 
delay is still further diminished, and so on, until we at length 
come to act with the knowledge, although acquired by experi- 
ence, as immediately present to the mind as if it were innate. 
This is part of the explanation of the influence of habit. But 
is it the whole explanation ? We think not. The change is 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 265 

not simply mental. It is corporeal too. Habit is a thing of the 
body as well as of the mind. It is the outcome of the law of 
association. This law may be thus stated : Whenever two acts, 
whether bodily or mental, have been either simultaneously or 
successively performed, one act has a tendency to introduce the 
other. This is why ideas flow through the mind in a train, the 
order of the train, unless interrupted by external perceptions, 
being determined by previous habits of thought. This explains 
why the fingers of the pianist fly over the keys of his instru- 
ment so rapidly and with touch so unerring. Each movement 
tends to produce the next in the train of movements which has 
been voluntarily established, but which, once commenced, is now 
continued with hardly a conscious volition. Indeed, it would 
seem, as some physiologists tell us, that actions associated by 
habit are transferred from the voluntary to the involuntary or 
automatic system of nerves, — that the work to which such ac- 
tions are subsidiary was done for us rather than by us. Cer- 
tainly we do not experience fatigue from it as from work which 
requires our continuous attention. Who does not know that 
the best intellectual work is done when thought, quickened by 
feeling, flows spontaneously, and the brain has not to be urged 
by the spur of the will ? 

We should not do justice to the volume if we did not refer 
briefly to the two modes pointed out so clearly, by which the 
mind seeks for and arrives at truth. They are by intuition and 
ratiocination ; or, by direct insight and the drawing of infer- 
ences ; or, as he prefers to designate them, by the poetic method 
and the prosaic or logical method. Before the prosaic or log- 
ical method can be practiced, objects must be classified, and the 
properties common to each class must be gathered up and repre- 



266 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

sented by general terms or symbols. This process is called in- 
duction. If it has been correctly performed, the general truths 
arrived at are the major premises of syllogisms, and can be used 
as such till their contents are exhausted. Their employment in 
this way is called ratiocination. The truth is not directly seen 
and apprehended, but is simply inferred from a comparison of 
ratios. These ratios are expressed by general terms or symbols, 
and, in reasoning, we need not and do not usually extend our 
thought beyond the symbols to the things denoted by them. 
The science of algebra furnishes the purest illustrations of this 
mode of arriving at truth. 

The other mode, by direct insight, has nothing to do with 
definitions or terms, but deals immediately with things. It con- 
templates these and apprehends directly their qualities and rela- 
tions. The mind accepts nothing at second hand, but sees for 
itself. Percipiency is the attribute or faculty which it chiefly 
employs. It analyzes and distinguishes and separates. It notes 
resemblances and differences. It ascertains the contents, not of 
general terms, but of individual things. It cleaves to things, 
with little attention to the words denoting them. When at- 
tempting to convey an idea of them to others, it chooses the 
most simple and picturesque language at its command. This 
intuition, this marvelous insight, is the gift of the poet, of the 
philosopher, of the man of strong common sense in ordinary 
business affairs, and especially of woman, whose quick and clear 
perception of circumstances and sound judgment upon them is 
willingly acknowledged by the sterner sex in all the more deli- 
cate relations of life. Persons of this class, reaching conclu- 
sions by a species of intuition, are frequently unable to give 
reasons for them that are satisfactory to others. One party has 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 267 

not the language, the other has not the sight. We cannot re- 
sist the pleasure of quoting one or two of Mr. Hazard's beautiful 
illustrations of his doctrine. 

Page 57. " All general propositions must "... to page 60 : 
" reason for their consequent action." 

The personal freedom and moral accountability of man lie at 
the foundation of most of the propositions of Mr. Hazard. It 
is the establishment of these beyond the possibility of question 
that constitutes the chief value of the little volume. The vari- 
ous fallacies which have gathered about these truths, so as more 
or less completely to disguise them, he has unmasked and scat- 
tered to the winds. For this, no easy or unimportant work, we 
owe him a debt of gratitude. 

Of his ideal theory of matter, which is interwoven with the 
entire discussion, we cannot speak with the same commendation. 
We do not see that it adds anything to the weight or clearness 
of his argument. No one of his conclusions rests upon it. 
They would be equally true on any other hypothesis, or without 
any hypothesis at all. The theory seems to be kept abreast with 
the discussion, not so much for lending support to the conclu- 
sions reached as for showing its compatibility with them. The 
author thinks that on the ideal hypothesis creation is more con- 
ceivable than on any other; is brought within the range of 
powers which we ourselves possess. He says that " we already 
have and habitually exercise all the faculties essential to mate- 
rial creation, and with the requisite increase in that of impressing 
our conception upon the minds of others, we could design and 
give palpable persistent existence to a universe varying to any 
extent from that which now environs us, which Avould be objec- 
tively as real and material to the vision, even of others, as the 



268 ^lAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

heaven and earth they now look out upon." This seems to us 
wholly illusory. Whatever theory of intelligent creation we 
adopt, the conception of the thing to be created must precede the 
act of creation. The act of creation, on the ideal hypothesis, 
consists not in forming the idea, but in making that idea real 
and palpable to all intelligences. It is not, be it remembered, 
one idea that is to be made real and palpable to a single mind, 
but an infinite number of different ideas are supposed to be im- 
pressed at the same time upon an equal number of different in- 
telligences; and that, too, not for one moment only, but for 
every instant of recorded time. Have we any power akin to 
this ? Can the human mind even take in so vast and complex 
a conception ? God creating each moment the infinitely varied 
perceptions of which his creatures are conscious, from an oyster's 
faint and glimmering apprehension of something without itself 
to the wonders of the starry heavens, as revealed to the eye and 
mind of a Newton ! 

The supposed analogy of creation, thus conceived, to the 
work of an artist, to which the author attaches importance, 
is, we think, wholly imaginary. There is no such analogy. 
There is not even the remotest resemblance between the two 
cases. The sculptor, for instance, chooses a block of marble 
— that is, a fragment of the divine thought, detached and 
raised from the quarry — in which to embody his ideal. By the 
continued application of the hammer and chisel, he prevails upon 
God gradually to change this fragment of the divine thought 
until it comes at length to represent his own thought, and serves 
to convey it more or less perfectly to others. Although thus 
modified, it is still God's thought ; and it is God, and not the 
artist, that makes it real and palpable to all who look or imagine 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 269 

they look upon the statue. The work is done by God in obedi- 
ence to the will of the artist. God does everything ; the artist 
nothing. The only capacity in which the artist can possibly 
act is that of a guide and assistant to God in modifying His orig- 
inal thought and bringing it into its present representative form. 

There is but one theory of creation that seems to us more im- 
probable, or with which we have less sympathy. It is that which 
supposes matter to exist, but to be in itself wholly inert. The 
forces that appear in it are not of it. They are dependent, 
each moment, upon the exertion of the divine will. Why, it 
may well be asked, suppose the existence of matter if it has no 
part in the production of the phenomena ascribed to it ? All 
that we know of matter is through these phenomena. 

Although we would not press any hypothesis on a subject so 
far beyond our comprehension, we are inclined to look upon 
matter not only as real and substantial, but as eternal, and as 
having possessed from all eternity the properties with which we 
now find it. These properties make it a fit material for the 
creations of mind, — creations which cannot transcend, but must 
conform to, the powers of that in which it works. This suppo- 
sition is favored by the very wide distribution of matter having 
everywhere the same elementary constitution, and by the very 
remote epochs to which the worlds achieved from it look back. 
It will also go further, as we think, than any other hypothesis 
towards explaining some of the profoundest mysteries of the 
universe. As the subject is one of which we really know noth- 
ing, it is perhaps well that different minds should look at it 
differently. That view of the creative work which to any one 
seems the most worthy, and which fills him with the deepest rev- 
erence for the Author of nature, will be for him the best view. 



270 MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 

For Mr. Hazard, idealism fulfills most perfectly this condition. 
He has been accustomed, in contemplating the changes of the 
outward world, to substitute for material causation the orderly 
movements of the divine will. This has become to him the 
most simple and natural mode of looking at the phenomena 
transpiring around him. It saves him from the unreasonable- 
ness, as he thinks, of ascribing active powers to a substance 
whose best known characteristic is inertia, and excludes the idea 
of physical necessity, so baleful in its influence, from the sphere 
of human conduct. It at the same time elevates and ennobles 
man by bringing him, in all the offices of life, into immediate 
intercourse and communion with the Author of his being. 
These ideas are presented with singular beauty in the closing 
pages of the work. Page 96, line 3 : "It is clear, therefore," 
... to page 99, closing with " pronounce it good." 

There can be no doubt of the immense superiority of idealism 
in every respect over a low and gross materialism. But is it 
necessary to choose between these two extreme views of nature ? 
Is there no intermediate conception having more to commend it 
to the common sense of mankind, and at the same time answer- 
ing better the requirements of a sound philosophical theory ? 
Are the manifestations of mind and matter so identical in char- 
acter that it is necessary to refer them to the same one essence ? 
On the contrary, are they not as strikingly distinguished from 
one another as light from darkness ? so unlike as to have noth- 
ing in common, except that they both exist ? one making itself 
known to the intelligence only, the other palpable to the senses ; 
one self - conscious, acting voluntarily under the guidance of 
knowledge, with reference to some desired end ; the other un- 
conscious, as we have every reason to believe, acting without 



MAN A CREATIVE FIRST CAUSE. 271 

knowledge, or choice, or end, but determined in its manifesta- 
tions of energy solely by antecedent conditions? Why place 
essences phenomenally so contrasted under the same category ? 
Why insist upon unitarianism, inlnd or matter, when dualism, 
mind and Tnatter, mind directing the activities of matter, making 
use of matter as an instrument for accomplishing the purposes 
of mind, building up from it worlds and peopling them with in- 
numerable forms of life, is more simple and better fulfills the 
conditions of the sublime problem ? But we will not argue the 
question. We have only desired to call attention to a remark- 
able book, full of original thought expressed in language so clear 
and simple as to be readily understood by all. The little vol- 
ume deserves and will repay a careful perusal. 



